Performance and applicability of geographic-based routing in smart grid´s neighbor area networks

Neighbor area network (NAN) is one of the most important segments of smart grid communications network (SGCN). This paper studies the performance of geographic-based greedy perimeter stateless routing (GPSR) in the NAN scenario and investigates the feasibility of this routing protocol in supporting S G applications. Specifically, packet transmission delay and reliability of GPSR in an IEEE 802.15.4-based wireless mesh NAN with practical system parameters are measured by simulations. The results show that, at the basic data rate, the delay can always be maintained below 70 ms (95% quartile) while packet delivery ratio is higher than 90%. This means that the simulated NAN can support a great number of S G applications including smart metering, real-time pricing, demand response, etc. However, due to that fact that more advanced applications that require information exchange at higher rates and more stringent delays are emerging in SG, the performance of GPSR in NAN scenarios using various radio technologies with higher offered loads and/or larger network scales needs to be studied.