Optimization of distributed communication architectures in advanced metering infrastructure of smart grid

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is a major part of a smart grid system, and it deals with both data collection from smart meters and processing of those data. The traditional AMI architecture uses a centralized operation center with a centralized meter data management system (MDMS), which makes this system non-scalable. The system needs to be scalable so that with increased demand, it can be expanded at minimal cost. In this paper, we used two types of scalable distributed communication architectures, as initially proposed by Zhou et al. [1], namely, communication architecture with distributed MDMS and fully distributed communication architecture to minimize the deployment cost. We modified the analysis approach and used MATLAB-based code incorporating a Heuristic algorithm to determine close-to-optimal solutions for optimization problems. The unique feature of our work is the process of calculating accumulated bandwidth distance, in which distances between different components of an AMI were calculated according to the practical grid system layout of a city´s infrastructure system. Theoretically developed scalability analysis was performed following [1], and the results were compared with the simulated results to indicate the validity of the asymptotic theoretical analysis. In our simulation, we found that the average distance between MDMS and the operation center was significantly different from that of Zhou et al. [1]. Our simulation results also indicated that both of the proposed architectures were scalable with significantly lower total deployment cost compared to the existing centralized communication architecture.