Dynamic line rating of overhead lines by cooperative and self-organizing sensor networks

In this paper a computational paradigm based on self-organizing smart sensor networks is proposed for addressing the problem of dynamic thermal rating prediction of overhead lines. The main idea is to decentralize the entire set of thermal rating processing and synchronization functions on a network of interactive smart sensors. The resulting computing architecture is expected to exhibit several advantages over traditional paradigms as far as built-in synchronization features, "in field" processing capabilities, less hardware complexities, less communication network requirements, easy to extend and reconfigure are concerned. Detailed results obtained on a real overhead line currently operating in the Italian power system are presented and discussed in order to prove the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.