A Congestion Control Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks in Smart Distribution Grid

The Quality of Service (QoS) in smart distribution grid communications is becoming significantly important in Distribution Automation System (DAS) for emerging smart grid applications. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been widely utilized in a broad range of electric power grid as a promising technology that can enhance various aspects of smart grid, especially the distribution data communications. However, in high-performance communication, the networks congestion frequently occurs when the link capacity is not enough to transmit all of the distribution data. And distribution data with varying importance are discarded indiscriminately, thus power consumers' QoS requirements are not able to be guaranteed. In this paper, by introducing Differentiated Services (Diffserv) scheme into smart grid based WSNs, the network is modelled as three classes of distribution data by a validated nonlinear fluid flow model to address different QoS requirements. Here, we use a robust sliding mode learning control (SMLC) algorism to control this congestion and meet different QoS requirements in various distribution grid environments. The simulation results demonstrate that proposed scheme mitigates congestion in distribution data communication more effectively than the conventional sliding mode control method.