S1 COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS TO ENABLE THE SMART GRID

Symposium Co-Chairs

  • Chonggang Wang, Inter Digital, USA
  • Javier Matamoros, Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya, SPAIN
  • Kan Zheng, Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications (BUPT), CHINA
  • Adnan Aijaz Kings College, London, UK
 

Scope and Motivation

Communication and networking technologies are essential for the Smart Grid in order to access distributed sensor information and to communicate configurations and set-points to actuators. They are critical to enable automated and distributed energy generation and efficient bidirectional power flows. Key tasks entail the integration, effective cooperation, and information interchange among the many interconnected elements of the electric power grid. Geographic distribution, scale, and heterogeneity become challenges that need to be addressed, in particular when realizing smartness in the energy distribution grid. Communication solutions in that setting need to realize machine-to-machine (M2M) communication with very high dependability and security standards, while satisfying real-time requirements posed by the targeted control application.
A Smart Grid communication infrastructure will in most cases not be designed from scratch, but needs to reuse existing available technologies and infrastructures, hence forming a heterogeneous communication network in which varying communication properties need to be detected and managed. Major research effort is required to integrate these components, technologies, and protocols into a versatile communication solution that can support a wide variety of smart grid applications ranging from smart metering data collection and demand response to micro-grid management and interaction of medium-voltage substation control with low-voltage distribution grid management.
This Symposium on Communications and Networks to Enable the Smart Grid has the objective to identify communication requirements in various grid applications, analyze existing communication technologies in that context and to develop communication architectures and protocols as well as communication-centric data-management solutions meeting those requirements.

Topics of Particular Interest

Original papers are welcome on, but not limited to, the following aspects of communication technology and networking for Smart Grid scenarios (including Smart Metering):
  • Physical and MAC layer protocols, low power link layer technologies (PLC and wireless)
  • Interference assessment and mitigation
  • Resource management and cross-layer optimization
  • Capacity and network planning, resource and service discovery
  • Multi-hop communication and mesh networking
  • Scalable network and system architecture (e.g., FAN, HAN, NAN and BAN)
  • Lightweight IP networking stacks for constrained devices
  • Communication protocols optimized for (real-time) information collection and control applications
  • Data models and communication-aware data management solutions for Smart Metering and Smart Grids
  • Coexistence, convergence and interoperability mechanism
  • Signal processing and coding techniques for energy related sensor information
  • Integration of smart meters in smart grid ICT networks; integration of electrical, gas and water meters in smart grid ICT solutions
  • Performance of smart metering and smart grid communication solutions and results from field trials
 

Technical Program Committee (TPC) Members

Óscar Álvarez, KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Giuseppe Araniti, University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Italy
Roberto Bruschi, CNIT, Italy
Lin    Cai, University of Victoria, Canada
Lijun Chen, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA
Franco Davoli, University of Genoa, Italy
Felicita Di Giandomenico, Italian National Research Council, ISTI, Italy
Yingfei Dong, University of Hawaii, USA
Melike Erol-Kantarci, Clarkson University, USA
Zhong Fan, Toshiba Research Europe, United Kingdom
Yuguang    Fang, University of Florida, USA
Amirhossein Ghanbari, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Yashar Ghiassi-Farrokhfal, University of Waterloo, Canada
Francesco Gringoli, University of Brescia, Italy
Yuanxiong Guo, Oklahoma State University, USA
Zhu    Han, University of Houston, USA
Deepa Kundur, University of Toronto, Canada
Albert Lam, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Lutz Lampe, University of British Columbia, Canada
Marco Levorato, University of California, Irvine, USA
Husheng    Li, University of Tennessee, USA
Ying Li, Samsung Telecommunications America, USA
Hao Liang, University of Alberta, Canada
Ren Ping Liu, CSIRO, Australia
Hang Long, Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications, P.R. China
Rongxing Lu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Tom H. Luan, School of Information Technology, Australia
Shiwen Mao, Auburn University, USA
Jan Markendahl, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Moslem Noori, University of Alberta, Canada
Rasmus Olsen, Aalborg University, Denmark
Yuexing Peng, Beijing University of Posts & Telecoms, P.R. China
Petar Popovski, Aalborg University, Denmark
Yi Qian, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, USA
Michele Rossi, University of Padova, Italy
Hans-Peter Schwefel, Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien, Austria
Lingyang Song, Peking University, P.R. China
Zhou Su, Waseda University, Japan
Hongjian Sun, Durham University, USA
David Tipper, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Stefano Tomasin, Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab France Research Center, France
Giorgio M. Vitetta, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Junfeng Wang, College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, P.R. China
Christian Wietfeld, TU Dortmund University, Germany
Kui Wu, University of Victoria, Canada
Chenguang Xu, University of Virginia, USA
Long Zhao, BUPT, P.R. China