Author(s)

Augusto V. Neto, Helber W. da Silva, Eduardo C. Cerqueira, Jose Neuman de Souza, Luci Pirmez, Danielo G. Gomes, Flavia C. Delicato, Rui L. Aguiar

Computer Engineering (ENGCOMP), Federal University of Pará (UFPA), Belém, Brazil.
Department of Informatics Engineering (DETI), Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil.
Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN), Natal, Brazil.
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil..
Group of Computer Communications, Software Engineering and Systems (GREat), Fortaleza, Brazil.
Telecommunication’s Institute (IT), Aveiro, Portugal.

Environmental sustainability issues and the costs of new power generation and transmission have increased the interest in evolving current power grid to new technologies. The Smart Grid is a promising technology, since it allows a distributed computing approach with potentials for self-diagnosing/-healing, reliable multi-user communication and fast hard real-time control. However, the missing standardization associated with heterogeneity of legacy systems and wide-area service demands, makes very challenging to adopt Smart Grid in a cost-effective way. By considering this, we propose the Session-Oriented Communication System (SOCSys) to overcome the above issues by enhancing Smart Grid with truly reliable and robust capabilities over heterogeneous environments. SOCSys achieves this goal by orchestrating session-control with innovative network-centric facilities operating over a wireless mesh Information Network compliant with IEEE 802.11e/s standard. The simulation results show that SOCSys improved network performance in terms of bandwidth utilization and minimization of delay, while consuming low network resources. Graphical analyses showed that SOCSys supported multimedia sessions with excellent quality, where it outperforms the experiments with regular settings.

Smart Grid; Session Control; Quality of Service; IP Multicast; Wireless Mesh Networks

A. Neto, H. da Silva, E. Cerqueira, J. de Souza, L. Pirmez, D. Gomes, F. Delicato and R. Aguiar, "Enhancing Smart Grid with Session-Oriented Communication System to Truly Support Reliability and Robustness," Smart Grid and Renewable Energy, Vol. 3 No. 4, 2012, pp. 260-265. doi: 10.4236/sgre.2012.34036.