Introduction

This chapter focuses on the usage of wireless sensor and actuator networks to provide data connectivity in smart grids. In particular, we discuss the configuration adopted for the implementation of the sensor network test-bed deployed at the Information Engineering Department of the University of Padova, Italy. The test-bed has been designed to reproduce typical deployment scenarios in an urban network by mimicking diverse contexts such as dense building networks, sparse environmental scenarios, and linear deployments along streets.

The test-bed software has been realized taking full advantage of the most advanced solutions provided by the academic community and the standardization bodies by implementing a completely IP interoperable communication framework. Moreover, the latest solutions for the Internet of things [1] have been used to develop a lightweight modular architecture offering services and data sources through simple and efficient web services. All of this facilitates the integration of the test-bed functionalities into flexible web applications, capable of performing the needed monitoring and managing routines in the entire network as well as on single nodes.

The Internet-like approach, coupled with a variety of network configurations, has been used to verify the advantages brought by the usage of constrained wireless communication for smart grids. In particular, we have been able to quantify useful performance metrics, such as maximum throughput, delivery delay, and transmission reliability, in typical smart grid network scenarios. Specifically, these performance metrics were determined for linearly shaped multihop configurations, to address networks deployed along streets, such as those controlling the street lights, as well as for dense single- and multihop configurations to address small-to-medium-sized building deployments.