Compressed Meter Reading for Delay-Sensitive and Secure Load Report in Smart Grid

It is a key task in smart grid to send the readings of smart meters to an access point (AP) in a wireless manner. The requirements of scalability, realtimeness and security make the wireless meter reading highly challenging. On assuming that the number of smart meters is large and the data burst is sparse, i.e., only a small fraction of the smart meters are reporting their power loads at the same time, the technique of compressed sensing is applied for the wireless meter reading. The distinguishing feature of the compressed meter reading is that the active smart meters are allowed to transmit simultaneously and the AP is able to distinguish the reports from different smart meters. The simultaneous access results in uniform delays, in contrast to the possible large delay in carrier sensing multiple access (CSMA) technique. The random sequence used in the compressed sensing enhances the privacy and integrity of the meter reading. The validity of the proposed scheme is then demonstrated by numerical simulations.