Interoperability Testbed for Smart Sensors in Smart Grids

Interoperability testing provides a means for achieving and assuring the integrity of smart sensor data exchanges. Interoperability testbeds can provide technical foundations for standards development for smart sensors in smart grids, including test methods and tools. This paper introduces an interoperability testbed for smart sensors, which has been built at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This testbed consists of four layers: power grids, sources, or simulators; smart sensors; communication networks; and smart sensor testers (SSTs). This testbed can be used to test the interoperability of standardized communication protocol-based smart sensors. We use International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61850-9-2 lite edition (LE) merging unit (MU) -based smart sensors as an example for interoperability testing. An interoperability testing system for MU-based smart sensors was set up and testing of two commercial MU-based smart sensors was conducted. The test results not only show the interoperability of two commercial MU-based smart sensors, but also demonstrate that the interoperability test method and test system are effective.