Emerging WiFi Direct technique in home area networks for Smart Grid: Power consumption and outage performance

Considering the power saving potential of the emerging WiFi Direct technique, we evaluate the performance of WiFi Direct technique in Home Area Networks (HANs) for Smart Grid communication from two aspects: power consumption and downlink outage performance. By modeling the traffic intensity and the number of working devices in a dynamic HAN as a Markov chain, the power consumption of the dynamic HAN with Power Saving Mechanism (PSM) and the conventional static HAN with Continuous Active Mode (CAM) are evaluated and compared. On the other hand, the probability density function (PDF) of the signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) for the active user connected in the HAN is derived from the amplitude distribution property of the classical indoor Saleh-Valenzuela (S-V) channel. The numerical results show that WiFi Direct technique not only improves the power saving in the HAN for Smart Grid, but also enhances the reliability of HAN communications for Smart Grid. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.