Integration of ZigBee and IEC 61850 networks for a substation automation system

The paper presents a device that integrates wireless ZigBee network with a substation automation system based on the IEC 61850 standard. A prototype system is tested against timing requirements defined in the IEC 61850 standard to check whether these can be met, especially under heavily loaded radio channel conditions. Experiments described in this paper include scenarios in which ZigBee network is exposed to periodical (TDMA based) and random (CSMA-CA based) sources of interference. The presented results demonstrate that several types of IEC 61850 messages delivered by a ZigBee network can meet timing requirements, if the radio channel occupancy is below a certain percentage.