The design and implementation of 128-bit AES encryption in PRIME

Powerline Related Intelligent Metering Evolution (PRIME) is a complete draft standard for a new power line communication(PLC) technology for the provision of all kinds of Smart Grid services over electricity distribution networks. To avoid eavesdropping by neighbors which connecting with the shared-medium network, 128-bit AES encryption is adopted to provide security protections in Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. In PRIME, the security of data transmission is critical in protecting the privacy of users and confidentiality of their communication. The AES architecture was designed in this paper and it was implemented by using Verilog HDL. Evaluation results show that AES core HDL model is fast and efficient.