Multigate mesh routing for smart Grid last mile communications

One of the most important issues in Smart Grid is to provide consumers with the knowledge of their energy usage, as well as allowing the utility to monitor and control the electric system components with real time status. This would require the design of a network architecture that is capable of providing secure and reliable two-way communication from meters to other Smart Grid domains. While networking technologies and systems have been greatly enhanced, in wireless communication environments the smart grid faces new challenges in terms of reliability. In this paper we are mainly concerned with assessing the performance of wireless mesh networks for the last mile communication. We consider a tree-based mesh routing scheme based on a multigate mesh network architecture. The multigate mesh routing scheme is based on a flexible mesh network architecture that expands on the hybrid tree routing of the IEEE 802.11s. The network is specifically designed to operate in a multi gateway structure in order to meet the smart grid requirements in terms of reliability, self-healing, and throughput performance. To further exploit the multigate network structure, a timer-based multipath routing diversity scheme is proposed in order to enhance the network reliability. The network is then used to measure the performance in terms of throughput and reliability.