Improving the reliability of IEEE 802.11s based wireless mesh networks for smart grid systems

A challenge faced by smart grid systems is providing highly reliable transmissions to better serve different types of electrical applications and improve the energy efficiency of the system. Although wireless networking technologies can provide highspeed and cost-effective solutions, their performance may be impaired by various factors that affect the reliability of smart grid networks. Here, we first suggest the use of IEEE 802.11s-based wireless LAN mesh networks as high-speed wireless backbone networks for smart grid infrastructure to provide high scalability and flexibility while ensuring low installation and management costs. Thereafter, we analyze some vital problems of the IEEE 802.11s default routing protocol (named hybrid wireless mesh protocol; HWMP) from the perspective of transfer reliability, and propose appropriate solutions with a new routing method called HWMP-reliability enhancement to improve the routing reliability of 802.11s-based smart grid mesh networking. A simulation study using ns-3 was conducted to demonstrate the superiorityof the proposed schemes.