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Summary: The past decade has brought prolific developments to power systems that range from large‐scale renewable integration to digital twins. Modern power systems consist of highly variable generation clusters. Hence, monitoring and prediction of power generation has become a vital part of today's power systems. On the other hand, detailed real‐time information of power usage is also a key parameter for the control algorithms used for the demand side management. With this information flow, power systems become smart grids which offer improved service and enable many advanced operations. In this regard, the home area network (HAN), which collects the power consumption/generation of household devices, plays a key role. So far, a number of technologies such as ZigBee, Z‐Wave, and Power Line Communication (PLC) have been considered for the HAN. Yet, widely used wireless local area network (WLAN) technology, Wi‐Fi, was not identified as a prominent candidate due to the limitations in its latency and reliability. However, with the introduction of the IEEE 802.11ax standard, Wi‐Fi 6 was developed, and it demonstrates guaranteed latency and reliability for its users. Thus, with its widespread deployment in households, Wi‐Fi is becoming a natural candidate for HAN. In this article, we present a comprehensive HAN protocol based on Wi‐Fi 6 which can achieve guaranteed latency and reliability for HAN users. The results show that when an efficient resource allocation mechanism is in place, using Wi‐Fi for HAN does not adversely affect the other Wi‐Fi users in the normal WLAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Home area network (HAN) devices send the electricity consumption and other important data to the smart meter that must remain confidential from other devices. This paper proposes a novel one-dimensional hybrid chaotic map. The proposed map shows excellent chaotic properties when analyzed by bifurcation diagram, Lyapunov exponent & Shannon entropy. We further design an encryption strategy for data transfers between the smart meter and HAN devices. The proposed encryption scheme uses the existing lightweight key management in advanced metering infrastructure (LKM-AMI) architecture for data transfers, in which the encrypted data is transferred through an insecure channel and private keys are provided by trusted third party (TTP) through secure channels. The 2-way communication between HAN devices and the smart meter sends messages that are encrypted by using the proposed novel hybrid one-dimensional chaotic map. The encryption strategy mainly consists of three steps. In the first step, the seed and the control parameters are initialized. The second phase generates two intermediate keys using the proposed hybrid chaotic map. In the last phase, we encrypt the message by applying permutation followed by diffusion using intermediate keys. The proposed encryption strategy is resistant to various attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the problem of improving the medium access control (MAC) layer efficiency in indoor broadband power line communication networks. Several overheads in the MAC layer, like random back-offs and collision recovery, degrade the MAC efficiency. To reduce these overheads, we apply in-band full-duplexing (IBFD), which enables medium-aware transmission at all the network nodes. Specifically, we propose two new schemes called contention-free pre-sensing and mutual preamble detection to minimize the time spent during contentions and collisions. Considering the non-idealities of IBFD, we analytically show the feasibility of our solutions. We further design a comprehensive simulation model with multiple priority data frames and Poisson network traffic arrival to emulate a real in-home network traffic. We then present numerical results for both the classical saturated network model and the comprehensive traffic model, to show through OMNeT++ simulations that our presented solutions achieve over 95% of the optimum MAC efficiency that can only be attained in the idealized case of no contentions or collisions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main purpose of the application of cognitive radio (CR) technology in the Home Area Network (HAN) of smart grid is to improve the spectrum utilization. Power control is one of the main ways of improving spectrum efficiency and spectrum sharing. By reducing the interference between secondary users (SXJs), users' signal to interference plus noise power ratio (SINR) is improved so as to ensure the normal communications among SXJs. We study three power control algorithms in the performance of home area access control network of smart grid based on CR technology. Simulation results show that the three algorithms have rapid convergence and high efficiency, which can reduce the system overhead to a certain extent and improve the network performance, thus having very good guidance significance for practical engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various short-range optical connections, transmitting either high-bit-rate digital signals or radio frequency analog signals, can exploit 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers as optical source together with the standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) as optical channel. This solution presents attractive features in terms of reduced cost and energy consumption. However, bandwidth reduction due to intermodal dispersion and undesired fluctuations of the received signal due to modal noise are present in this case. Such effects are studied theoretically and experimentally, and a cost-effective solution is proposed to reduce their impact. Hence, connections with SSMF length up to 300 m with 3-dB bandwidth of 2500 MHz are demonstrated, while the modal noise is reduced to a standard deviation of less than 2 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Because traditional electronics cannot directly use the alternating output voltage and current provided by electric field energy harvesters, harvesting systems require additional regulating and conditioning circuits. In this field, this work presents a conditioning circuit, called serial switch-only rectifier (SSOR) for low-voltage electric field energy harvesting (EFEH) applications. The proposed approach consists of a tubular topology harvester mounted on the outer jacket of a 230 V three-wires electrical cable (neutral, ground, and phase), in which terminals are connected to SSOR. We compare SSOR performance with classic electronic approaches, such as a full-bridge rectifier and voltage doubler. Experimental findings showed that the gathered energy by a 1 m cylindrical harvester increased in approximately 73.3% using the SSOR as a power management circuit. Experimental findings showed that the gathered energy by a 1 m cylindrical harvester increase in approximately 73.3% using the SSOR as a power management circuit. This increase is principally due to the fact that a serial bidirectional switch disconnects the harvester from the rest of the management circuit, enhancing the charge collection process. Although simulated results disclosed that SSOR increased collected energy for smaller-scale harvesters (experimental tests obtained using a 10 cm cylindrical harvester), additional losses in bidirectional switch reduced its performance. In addition, we introduce a comprehensive analysis of EFEH systems based on SSOR according to the mains frequency for future power systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smart grid-enabled home area network (HAN) connects many devices of a smart home such as smart appliances, renewable energy sources and storage, electric cars etc. to the smart grid to save energy and reduce cost. Since not directly controlled by the Utility, the HAN is the most vulnerable part of the smart grid while device authentication is one of the major challenges for the security of the HAN. In this work, we developed an efficient device authentication and communication scheme for smart grid-enabled HAN utilizing the situation awareness feature of smart home system. The smart home system can detect the current security risk level of the HAN based on information collected from activity recognition and cyber threats. The device authentication and communication protocols are designed based on the security risk levels. A more light-weight protocol is used when the security risk level is low. We developed an example design that considered two levels of security risk. The security of the proposed protocols against various attacks was analyzed. The performance analysis results show that the proposed design can significantly reduce computational and communication cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth towards the millimeter-wave band in the home area networks (HAN) leads to high data rate transmission to satisfy the new user services. Unfortunately, the transmission coverage in this band is limited to short distances because of the strong air absorption and obstacles such as walls. The effort is then focused on the extension of the network coverage of the wireless link in this band. Solutions based on multiple connected access points to optical fibers are useful methods to ensure wireless connectivity to the entire home. For HAN applications, radio-over-fiber (RoF) using intensity modulation and direct detection technique is the mostly favorite technology for the transmission of a broadband wireless signal because dealing with a cost-effective solution. We investigate in this paper the performance of such RoF-wireless architecture with low-cost optoelectronic modules through the error vector magnitude (EVM) metric. The RoF links investigated are a directly modulated VCSEL with integrated photoreceiver module, an electroabsorption-modulated laser with PIN photodiode and a Mach-Zehnder Modulator with PIN photodiode. A simulation approach based on equivalent electrical circuit models of photonic components is developed in ADS (Advanced Design System) by using a co-simulation technique that combines both analog and digital signals. The downlink channel of the complete transmission system including wireless channel and frequency conversion circuits to millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band is studied by simulation. The obtained results of EVM show good performances of cost-effective links with QPSK and 16-QAM modulation over a dynamic range of 15 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart meters (SMs) are key components of the smart grid (SG) which gather electricity usage data from residences and businesses. Home area networks (HANs) are used to support two-way communications between SMs and devices within a building such as appliances. This can be implemented using power line communications (PLCs) via home wiring topologies. In this paper, a bottom-up approach is designed and a HAN-PLC channel model is obtained for a split-phase power system which includes branch circuits, an electric panel with circuit breakers and bars, a secondary transformer and the wiring of neighboring residences. A cell division (CD) method is proposed to construct the channel model. Furthermore, arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) and ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) circuit breaker models are developed. Several HAN-PLC channels are presented and compared with those obtained using existing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]