Low-Cost and Secure Communication System for SCADA System of Remote Microgrids

Amjad Iqbal,M Tariq Iqbal

doi:10.1155/2019/1986325

Abstract

Renewable energy-based local microgrids are gaining popularity despite the unavailability of low-cost, power efficient, and secure communication system for its supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. This research has been carried out to address this issue along with the additional features such as data uploading to a server through a gateway, local data logging, and alerting the concerned crew in case of any fault to minimize the outage time. This paper presents the design of a communication system for the SCADA system of microgrid. ESP32 with LoRa has been used for communication between two nodes or a node and central SCADA unit. Communication security has been achieved by implementing AES cryptography. Data authenticity has been achieved by introducing a unique message authentication code (MAC) for each message. A mesh-like network has been implemented to improve the LoRa range. ESP32 and dragino-uno based LoRa gateways have been tried for uploading the data to the server, and local data storage has been achieved using an SD card. The main controller working as the SCADA unit has the feature of sending emails. Detailed system design and test results are presented in this paper.

Highlights

In Canada, more than 300 communities are in remote areas and are isolated from the central power grid and only rely on distributed power generation units
We have proposed and implemented a secure and authentic communication system using an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm
E results of AES implementation are shown in Figure 14(b), in which a nine-round AES has been implemented on ESP32 with a LoRa module

Summary

Introduction

In Canada, more than 300 communities are in remote areas and are isolated from the central power grid and only rely on distributed power generation units. In this way, control information becomes prone to the eavesdropper and loses authenticity and security. It visualizes the comparison of received and sent messages at different spreading factors (at SF-7 and SF-12).

Cryptographic Algorithms on Arduino with DRF1276G LoRa Module

Implementation of AES Algorithm Using ESP32 and LoRa Module

Data Logging and Data Rate

Results

Conclusion