Page 209 - From Smart Grid to Internet of Energy

Emerging wireless communication for smart grid applications Chapter 5 185

l Providing Safe Connections between MAC Entities: The MAC layer utilizes
various transactions such as CSMA/CA, re-transmission, frame acknowl-
edgement and CRC data verification in order to advance connection reliabil-
ity between MAC entities.

5.3.2 IEEE 802.15.4g (smart utility network, SUN)
The IEEE 802.15.4g standard (Smart Utility Network, SUN) presents amend-
ments to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard to ensure a global standard that simplifies
large-scale process control applications such as SG networks capable of sup-
porting large, geographically heterogeneous networks with minimum infra-
structure and potentially millions of fixed endpoints [19]. This global
standard harmonizes mapping schemes, data rates, power levels, PHY layer,
and other technical features. It is mainly developed for outdoor communication
applications that function in the unlicensed frequency bands covering the
700 MHz to 1 GHz band and 2.4 GHz ISM band. The date rate of the IEEE
802.15.4g may change from 5 to 400 Kbps. This standard uses time division
multiple access (TDMA) based frequency-hopping MAC different from the
IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which can be considered as coordinated sampled lis-
tening (CSL). The CSL authorizes receivers to regularly sample the channel for
arriving transmission data at low duty cycles. The transmitter and receiver
devices can be synchronized to diminish transmit overhead. The mesh topology
is utilized by the standard to realize practical applications in the SG systems
since this network topology can provide robust access from/to the SMs at an
acceptable deployment cost. The 802.15.4e MAC sublayer has improved the
MAC layer of IEEE 802.15.4. The combination of 802.15.4g PHY and
802.15.4e MAC sublayer provides energy-efficient and robust solutions for
the IEEE 802.15.4g standard. In addition, the PHY layer of the SUN provides
interoperable communication systems among SMs and SG devices.
The Wireless Smart Utility Network (Wi-SUN) is an international interop-
erable standard that is developed in accordance with the IEEE 802.15.4g. Wi-
SUN Alliance [20] is a consortium of several companies that aims to form a
global organization for driving the adoption of interoperable SUNs. The Alli-
ance performs comprehensive tests to indicate interoperability in sub-GHz fre-
quency bands for wide-coverage markets including Japan, North America,
Australia/New Zealand, and Latin America markets.

5.3.3 IEEE 802.15.4k—(low energy critical infrastructure
monitoring, LECIM)

The IEEE 802.15.4k standard was started by characterizing PHY and MAC
layer for low-energy critical infrastructure monitoring (LECIM) in 2013
[21]. The LECIM networks can be utilized for several monitoring applications
covering industrial metering systems that have wide coverage, reliable, secure,