ZigBee-Based Communication System for Data Transfer within Future Microgrids

Abstract

A wireless data communication system for future Microgrids (MGs) is presented in thispaper. It is assumed that each MG has a central controller and each distributed generationunit in the MG has a local controller. The communication system is responsible fortransmitting and receiving data amongst these controllers. This communication system isbased on ZigBee technology, which is a low cost and low power consumption device.However, its main limitation is the low data transfer rate. To reduce the number of datatransactions, a data management scheme is presented in this paper. The required data tobe transferred are defined and a suitable coding is proposed. Finally, the number oftransmitted symbols and the processing time of the proposed data management schemeare numerically analyzed. In addition, the dynamic operation of an MG is evaluatedconsidering the delays that are imposed by this communication system.