Future and emerging smart grid applications are becoming increasingly reliant on modern communication and networking technologies in order to overcome the power system scale requirements and inherent heterogenity. Ever increasing reliability, reduced latency and scalable connectivity options are necessary for integration of interconnected grid elements in order to provide for timely, bi-directional information exchange across the geographically distributed areas of the grid. Availability of data sources collected across the grid provides for novel opportunities for intelligent, data-aided adaptation of communication infrastructure to the requirements of smart grid applications such as smart metering data collection, distributed energy trading, demand response, etc. Therefore, significant research is required to bring together emerging communication and networking technologies and protocols into a flexible and data-driven platform supporting a wide variety of smart grid applications.
Symposium on Communications and Networking aims at analyzing the ability of existing and emerging communication and networking technologies to support ever more challenging communication requirements in various smart grid applications. The symposium targets investigation of novel communication architectures and protocols as well as communication-centric data-management technologies to support the smart grid and related cyber-physical systems. Among the key topics, the symposium will address interaction between the communications network, sensing infrastructure, and the grid operation and control, integration of the fifth generation (5G) and beyond 5G (B5G) wireless communications, and exploitation of novel networking and computing concepts such network virtualization, edge and fog computing, and software-defined networking. In particular, the topics related data-aided machine-learning and artificial intelligence based approaches to support efficient communication infrastructure operation, management and self-configuration, will be relevant for future dynamic smart grids. As evidenced with the above objectives, the symposium will target a wide scope that ranges from fundamental theoretical performance results to practical system design, implementation and testbed demonstration.
Topics of Particular Interest include:
- Communication and System
- Physical and MAC layer protocols including the beyond fifth generation (B5G) and machine type communication (MTC) wireless technologies
- Low power and wide area link layer technologies (PLC and wireless)
- Interference assessment and mitigation
- Data-aided resource management and cross-layer optimization
- Capacity and network planning, resource and service discovery
- Networking
- Multi-hop communication and mesh networking
- Lightweight IP networking stacks for constrained devices
- 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
- Machine-learning and Artificial Intelligence approaches for efficient network operation, management and self-configuration
- Data models and communication-aware data management solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT), smart metering and smart grids
- Coexistence, convergence and interoperability mechanism
- Application to Smart Energy and Cyber-Physical Systems
- Data models and communication-aware data management solutions for smart metering and smart grids
- Signal processing and coding techniques for energy-related sensor information
- Machine and deep-learning at the edge for smart grid applications
- 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; performance of electric vehicle and their supply equipment networks; performance of microgrid communication networks
- Joint communication and control for smart energy systems
- Interoperability and performance of communication solutions for substation automation and control of distributed energy resources
