Analytical Modeling of Traffic Flow in the Substation Communication Network

A custom-designed and well-monitored substation communication network (SCN) can maintain fast and reliable information transmission and lead to improved operation and management of a substation automation system (SAS). In order to achieve this goal, a traffic-flow model, including a port connection model, a traffic-flow source model, and a traffic-flow service model of an SCN is developed in this paper. Based on the traffic-flow model, a traffic-flow calculation algorithm is designed to obtain the distribution of traffic load and maximum message delay. In order to verify the accuracy of the proposed method, the SCN of a simplified substation is established in the laboratory. And the distribution of traffic load and maximum message delay calculated using the proposed method are compared to that measured by a network analyzer. Furthermore, possible applications, such as network device selection, network performance analysis, and sensitivity analysis of the proposed method are demonstrated based on a typical 220-kV substation.