A hybrid contention-polling protocol for PLC-based AMR systems

This paper propose a new and effective communication protocol for implementation of automatic meter reading (AMR) systems using power line communication (PLC). The proposed hybrid contention-polling protocol involves request broadcasting by the data concentrator (DC) and subsequent rebroadcasting by higher level meters up till the third hop using a novel dual purpose packet for transmission. The proposed protocol employs CSMA-CA medium access control protocol for the first phase on contention-based data transmission. The throughput of the AMR system is then further improved with the second phase on polling of failed meter units after the initial contention period. The performance of the proposed protocol in terms of data collection delay and throughput is analyzed and compared with that of the Neighbor Relay Polling (NRP) protocol which has been shown to be typically effective in overcoming the “silent node” problem associated with AMR systems. The simulation models also present analysis of two different topological networks, structured and unstructured, of the PLC access network assuming an automatic three-level clustering mechanism. The proposed hybrid protocol ensures significantly higher performance than the NRP protocol in terms of data collection delay.