Performance analysis of AMI distributed area network using WiMAX technology

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is an enormous part of smart grid technology which enables two way communications between the smart meter of customer and control centre. Similar to other parts of the smart grid, choosing suitable communication technology is one of the most challenging parts of AMI. For effective communications, the reliability of flow of applications data is very crucial with the selection of communication technology. Besides that, proper estimation of network load in worst condition of the network is also important for evaluating the performance of network. Little research has been conducted on analyzing and simulating the Distributed Area Network (DAN) by considering both uplink and downlink applications of AMI. In this paper, a comprehensive study is done on meter reading infrastructure, and the network payload of AMI Distributed Area Network (DAN) is analyzed from customer data collector node to control centre or vice versa. Network is designed using WiMAX technology. Performance analysis of the network is carried out in terms of end to end delay and application wise time delay by varying number of nodes in the network to demonstrate AMI in an efficient manner.