Abstract
Effective communication is an important aspect of any technology that involves exchange of information. Smart Grid is one such technology whose success depends on exchange of messages. This project analyses the transport protocols for sending and receiving control and data messages between utility offices (within the Grid), and between the Grid and the consumers place (devices at the interface of consumer place and the Grid). In the current project, the analysis of transport protocols is done by considering a set of open standard transport protocols, analyzing the set of standard transport protocols based on Smart Grid's transport protocol requirements and comparing the analyzed protocols. This could help in choosing the best suitable transport protocol(s) for use in Smart Grid. In this project, connection oriented transport protocols like TCP, SCTP, WP-TCP and Split-TCP, and connectionless transport protocols like UDP, WDP and Cyclic UDP were selected. These selected set of protocols were analyzed based on Smart Grid's communication requirements over various communication media. Based on the analysis, these protocols were compared so as to give an idea of which protocol is better suited for Smart Grid. The results of the comparison are, for normal data transfer TCP and SCTP are best suited protocols for communication over Ethernet medium. SCTP and UDP are good candidates for large data transfers over high bandwidth media like Fiber Optics and Satellite Channel communication, and WDP over only wireless medium. For time-sensitive messages (event messages) which need not be reliable, UDP seems to be the best suited protocol on all media, and WDP over wireless media. For reliable real-time traffic (control messages), SCTP is the best suited transport protocol over any media.