A network design algorithm for multicast communication architectures in smart transmission grids

Charles M Adrah,David Palma,Øivind Kure,Poul E Heegaard

doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2020.106484

Abstract

In future smart transmission grids, there are distributed applications that will benefit from the deployment of Internet Protocol (IP) multicast technology for communication. Sharing of Routable-Sample Values (R-SV) and Routable-GOOSE among the digital substations for wide-area monitoring, protection, and control (WAMPAC) applications will be needed. Using multicast for distribution of R-SVs is resource-efficient and offers a simpler configuration with only the interested substations needing reconfiguration. However, the demands for such concurrent delivery of R-SV data will put constraints on the underlying supporting networking infrastructure. For example, it must be ensured that the paths taken to route data traffic are within the bounds of delay to achieve the aims of the WAMPAC application. In this paper, we look at the problem of network topology augmentation through link additions. We present a heuristic algorithm that finds a set of links to be added to a network topology such that the multicast distribution tree for a multicast configuration is bounded by latency, which is set as the hop-count threshold. Our results show that by adding a few new links to the network topology, the delay incurred by the multicast traffic from sources to destinations can be reduced.

Highlights

Critical infrastructures such as the smart transmission grid (STG) will depend on supporting communication networking infrastructures
We have presented a novel heuristic algorithm, reduction over minimum set cover (ROMSC), that adds a minimum number of links to the network topology
When we assume a constant delay per hop, the maximum delay for a multicast configuration running in the network can be set

Summary

Introduction

Critical infrastructures such as the smart transmission grid (STG) will depend on supporting communication networking infrastructures. In STG operations, deploying Internet Protocol (IP) multicast technologies as a solution for wide-area monitoring, protection, and control (WAMPAC) applications have been proposed [1,2]. This will become increasingly common and relevant as more substations adopt the IEC 61850 standardization in substation automation [3,4]. From the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) network perspective, multicast offers several benefits One of these is bandwidth efficiency as only one copy of R-SV is sent over a link into the network from a source substation to the numerous interested receivers, instead of sending multiple copies from the source substation. Both the source substation and interested receivers would have to be reconfigured whenever a new receiver is interested in R-SVs

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion