Secured Information Exchange in Smart Grids

Abstract

Smart Grid is a modernized electrical system that integrates power distribution with information technologies. To facilitate efficient and secure information exchange wireless networks must to be widely used in smart grid. The wireless communication network used here is one of major problem as it has raised issues of confidentiality and security of the utility and consumer and can lead to various attacks such as eavesdropping, information tampering, and jamming. In present we use conventional wireless methods for exchanging all kinds of information of demand, protection system, tariff rate, customer details, safety details along with power quality data and event management data. This information has to be transmitted securely else the system can be vulnerable to third party interference or even more. ‘Spread spectrum’ technique is one of the method that can be used to prevent such attacks in wireless communication which also allows to achieve the privacy of information during transmission over the grids and gives us opportunity for dynamic control of the power system irrespective of the power flow direction. Low probability of intercept and anti-jamming features are the inherent property of SS technique because of which the military system has used spread spectrum method for their communication for so many years. SS signals are transmitted over the grids at a low spectral power density, i.e. bandwidth of the signal is increased keeping the amplitude and power of the signal constant, measured in watts per hertz. The use of Pseudo-Noise (PN) codes used in SS technique makes signal appear like noise and of high bandwidth. The paper focuses on the different technology like Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) for secured exchange of information to ensure better QOS (Quality of Service) and reliability as well as to prevent any distortion in data at the receiver. Here we have simulated for both fhss and dsss.