Interference‐aware QoS routing for neighbourhood area network in smart grid

Abstract

Communication networks in smart grid collect and transfer various information between smart meters and control centre to support different quality of service (QoS) requirements of smart grid applications. However, there are many factors which could affect high reliability and QoS communication such as electromagnetic interference, equipment noise and multi-path effects. To address these challenges, a new routing metric is proposed in this study. The proposed metric takes into account the impacts caused by inter- and intra-flow interference, yielding reliable and high capacity links for neighbourhood area network communications in smart grid. In addition, it differentiates traffic flows into four different classes and makes packets compete for accessing a channel according to their priorities. Based on the metric, an interference aware QoS routing protocol, named interference-aware expected transmission time routing (IAEETR), is further proposed to provide reliable and real-time data transmission. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that high-priority traffic in the network is with small delay, and low-priority traffic can also have chance to compete for a wireless channel to transmit information. Furthermore, IAEETR protocol can improve end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio with multiple simultaneous connections, even with a higher flow rate of mesh nodes.