Efficient data collection for smart grid using wireless sensor networks

Data collection is an essential operation in smart grids using wireless sensor networks. In a smart grid, a smart meter generates power usage and a data collection unit periodically collects it from every smart meter. This paper focuses on a central data collection problem of how to quickly collect every power usage from every smart meter without collisions. To solve the problem, we divide a tree that a sensor network constructs into several branches. Each branch consists of all meters included in a path from a data collection unit to a leaf meter, and a conflict-free query schedule is generated based on branches. The novel method avoids collisions between a query and a query response as well as between query responses. The experimental results show that this method can achieve both collision avoidance and fast query processing at the same time.