2014 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT ASIA)

Modeling of Novel zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 MAC

Protocol for SCADA Low Voltage Smart Grid
Distribution Systems
Hikma Shabani,
Musse Mohamud Ahmed

Sheroz Khan
Shihab Ahmed Hameed
Mohamed Hadi Habaebi

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Hikmash@yahoo.fr

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
distribution [2]. Hence, the traditional low voltage
distribution substation is upgraded to smart grid distribution
system where WSN is deployed to provide greater control
and intelligence in distributed networks that lead to a more
flexible and powerful protection scenarios than the current
used wired sensor [3]. The Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 is one of
the promising WSN standards due to its low cost of
deployment, low power, low data rate, short range,
simplicity, high reliability and its free licensed spectrum
within 2.4GHz ISM band [4].

AbstractThe loss of the integrity and/or availability of data

has the potential to diversely affect power utility core
operations. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
(SCADA) system is a computer system for collecting and
analyzing data in almost real-time fashion for monitoring
purposes. SCADA refers to the combination of telemetry and
data acquisition. Communication plays, thus, a core role in
SCADA systems. The use of wireless sensor network (WSN)
can, however, lead to a more flexible and powerful protection
scenarios than the current used wired sensor. Merit to
Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 as one of the promising WSN standards
due to its low cost of deployment, low power, low data rate,
short range, simplicity and free licensed spectrum. While a
beacon-enabled mode is adopted for energy efficiency
operations with a multi-hop mesh network built up for large
coverage, IEEE802.15.4 standard does not provide any
mechanisms for a beacon-enabled mode in multi-hop mesh
networks. Hence, in order to provide a real-time data exchange
and thus, predict a real-time system control, a Novel
Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 MAC Protocol for SCADA system is
modeled in this paper. The protocol performance is evaluated
using NS-2 Simulation and the preliminary results are
encouraging.

IEEE 802.15.4 standard offers a viable Medium Access

Control (MAC) and physical (PHY) specification for
WSNs. The IEEE 802.15.4 MAC sub-layer permits two
modes for transmitting and receiving data: asynchronous
beaconless and synchronous beacon-enabled mode. Mainly,
the beaconless mode does not provide any guarantee for
data delivery whereas the beacon-enabled mode uses
Guaranteed Time Slot (GTS) allocation to guarantee timecritical data transmissions [5]. Even thus, the beaconenabled mode is adopted for energy efficiency operations
and Quality of Service (QoS), it is restricted to star (one
hop-limited) or multi-hop cluster tree (less scalable and
robust) topologies. In order to predict a real-time SCADA
system control for Low Voltage Smart Grid Distribution
Systems, a multi-hop mesh network that is more scalable,
robust and extensive network is modeled in this paper. The
main focus of this work is to improve the SCADA
communication network reliability, availability, power
consumption and transmission delay for real-time data
exchange by adjusting the current Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4
MAC. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section
II
highlights
the
MAC
sub-layer
of
the
Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 standard. Section III develops the
Novel Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 MAC Protocol. The simulation
results and analysis are given in Section IV while Section V
presents the conclusion and perspectives.

Index Terms--Keywords: SCADA, Telemetry, AMI, Low

Voltage, Smart Grid, Distribution Systems, Novel
Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 MAC Protocol, WSN, Multi-Hop Mesh
Network, NS-2.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The quality and reliability of electric power supply are

the key index parameters in the growth of a modern society
[1]. However, majority of issues of concern in an electric
supply utility stem from the distribution system (DS) that is
being currently served by a central computer (CC) using
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
systems for collecting and analyzing data for monitoring
purposes. Nevertheless, the legacy telecommunication
networks used for SCADA systems do not provide the
required security and reliability of electrical power

978-1-4799-1300-8/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

360

2014 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT ASIA)

II.

IEEE802.15.4 MAC SUB-LAYER STANDARD

III.

The IEEE802.15.4 MAC sub-layer handles network

association and disassociation. To regulate the access to the
medium, the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol specifies a
beacon-enabled and a beaconless mode of operation.

NOVEL ZIGBEE/IEEE MAC PROTOCOL

The Novel Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 superframe structure is

the mixture of the modified model (Figure 2) developed in
[9] for star network topology and the beacon collision
avoidance technique as suggested in [10].

In the beaconless mode, devices communicate

asynchronously, requiring nodes to be constantly in the
receive mode, awaiting reception of data transmissions from
other devices. Devices compete for channel access using an
un-slotted non-persistent carrier sense multiple access with
collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol and no QoS
mechanism is expected in this mode which makes it suitable
for application without QoS compliant constraints [6].

CAP
B

CFP
C.
D.

GTS1

In the beacon enabled mode, devices synchronize their

actions and coordinate with each other for data transmission.
Full function devices (FFDs) periodically transmit beacon
frames to synchronize wakeup (or sleep) schedules with
neighboring nodes. Channel access and data transmission are
carried out using a superframe structure. As in Figure 1, the
superframe is bounded by network beacons and is divided
into 16 equally sized slots, the first of which is dedicated to
the transmission of the beacon frame [7].

2 3

PRTPU

B+1

GTS2

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Active
Period (SD)

Inactive
Period

Beacon Interval (BI)

Figure 2: Enhanced IEEE802.15.4 Superframe structure [9]

A.
0 B.
1

CAP

CFP

7 8

B+1

As it can be observed from the above Figure 2, this

Enhanced IEEE802.15.4 superframe structure presents the
following adjustments to the traditional IEEE 802.15.4std

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Active
Period (SD)

Inactive
Period

Beacon Interval (BI)

Figure 1: IEEE802.15.4std Superframe structure

In order to reduce energy consumption, the coordinator

introduces an inactive period by choosing beacon interval
(BI) greater than superframe duration (SD). During inactive
period, all devices including the coordinator go into a sleep
mode [8]. BI, SD and the sd (slot duration which is the
sixteenth of the active period) are determined by two
parameters, the Beacon Order (BO) and the Superframe
Order (SO), and defined respectively, as
2

(1)

(2)

However, in multi-hop mesh networks, devices (FFDs)

will be exchanging beacon order to ensure the robustness
and reliability performance of the network. Hence, for
network efficiency, in mesh networks, each beacon-enabled
node requires the list of its two hops neighbor nodes which is
achieved by using two commands, namely, MLMENEIGHBOUR_SCAN to obtain its neighbors beacons and
MLME-NLIST_REQ to request the neighbors neighbor list.
A Reserved Broadcast Duration Slot (RBDS) in the active
superframe is used as time reference to compute the beacon
offset of beacon enabled nodes [10]. The Novel
Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 superframe structure is presented in
the following Figure 3.

(3)

The CFP comes directly after the beacon and the

CAP is placed between the end CFP of and the end
of the SD. After the CAP, nodes can go to sleep to
save power if the coordinator allows it.
In the CFP, to match the IEEE802.15.4std, the
GTS fields are placed in sequence starting by
GTS1after the beacon.
A new packet branded Pending Real-Time Packets
Update (PRTPU) was placed at the end of CFP.
This PRTPU enables the coordinator to advertise to
the network nodes about the new packets sent in
the previous period. Thereby the end nodes will
send a data request command to the coordinator to
poll this data in the CAP of the same superframe.

14

361

2014 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT ASIA)

RBDS
B

Start

CFP

CAP

B+1
Association, t=0

E.
F.

GTS1

GTS2

MLME-NEIGHBOR SCAN
0 1

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Active
Period (SD)

MLME-NLIST_REQ

Inactive
Period

Build Neighbor Table

Beacon Interval (BI)

Find the Empty Slot
Figure 3: Novel Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 Superframe structure

Empty slots?

The developed Novel Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 superframe

structure presented in Fig. 4 has similar periods as the model
developed in [10] with the following modifications

A new time slot labeled reserved broadcast

duration slot (RBDS) has replaced the PRTPU of
the model developed in [10] and presented in Fig. 3

The RBDS is located before the beacon and at the

beginning of the SD. The RBDS is used by all
nodes (FFDs) to send critical real-time data while
GTS is used to send normal real-time data.

Nodes with critical real-time data can access the

channel faster than those having normal data, since
they do not wait for the end of the CAP to send
their data.

The normal real-time nodes do not need to contend

for the channel access in the CAP, since they send
all their data in the CFP which starts the
superframe.

t=t+1

t >T
Y

Start beacon in the allocated

offset

Continue as end device

Figure 4: Multi-Hop Mesh node association process

B. Novel Slotted CSMA/CA Algorithm

The Figure 5 displays the flow chart for the developed
Novel IEEE802.15.4 CSMA/CA algorithm for beaconenabled mode multi-hop mesh networks. This Novel model
uses the similar parameters as defined in IEEE 802.15.4
standard in which a basic time unit called backoff period
(BP) with a time slot of length aUnitBackoffPeriod is used
to transfer data in the CAP of the superframe where the
following three dependent parameters are used in beaconenabled mode traffic differentiation strategy:

On the other hand, this new structure presents the following

improvements

The third improvement is very important since it is

related to the energy-delay tradeoff. In this
technique, the real-time data is sent and received in
the same superframe.

Backoff Exponent (BE) which enables the

computation of the free backoff delay random
0, 2BE 1 .
Hence:
macMinBE

(4)

The FFD node association process is explained in the

following section.

Contention Window (CW) which is the number of

time units the channel must be sensed idle before
channel access.

A. FFD Association Process Algorithm

For the association procedure, each beacon-enabled
node upholds a variable t T aMaxFrameRetries
indicating
the number of iterations a node undergoes to
find an empty slot in the neighbour table as shown in Figure
4

Number of Backoffs (NB) or retry count is the

number of time CSMA/CA goes back to backoff in
case of busy channel (while attempting to access
the channel).

Therefore:
NB

362

macMaxCSMASBackoffs

(5)

2014 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT ASIA)

TABLE I
PARAMETERS FOR SIMULATIONS (250kbps) [13]

Novel Slotted CSMA

Parameters
Number of end devices
Topology
Packet size
Simulation time
Transmission range
Transmission rate
Routing protocol
ARP
Number of scenarios

NB=0, CW=2
and
BE=macMinBE

Delay for random 2

1
unit backoff periods

The Novel IEEE 802.15.4 offers better results than IEEE

802.15.4std in term of end-to-end delay versus the network
size due to its capability of sending and receiving the realtime data in the same superframe. However, there is a drastic
increase of end-to-end delay when the number of nodes is
greater than 51 as shown in the Figure 6.

Perform CCA

35000
Y

CW = CW - 1
End-to-end delay (ms)

Channel
idle?

Values
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80
Mesh
50 bytes
2000seconds
15 m
One packet every BI
None
Deactivated
More than 112

NB=NB+1, BE=min
(BE+1, aMaxBE)

CW =
0?

30000
25000
20000
15000
10000

IEEE 802.15.4 std (simulation)

Novel IEEE 802.15.4 (simulation)

5000
N

NB > macMaxCSMABackoffs?

0
11

Failure

41

51

61

Figure 6: End-to-end delay vs. Number of nodes

Success

The following Figure 7 presents the node power consumption

against the network size where it is observed that, as the
number of nodes increases, a successful transmission of every
bit of data requires less energy.

Figure 5: Novel Slotted CSMA/CA Algorithm

IV.

31

Number of nodes

SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

This Novel IEEE802.15.4 MAC model is compared with the

IEEE802.15.4 MAC standard for its evaluation whereas its
validation is confirmed through the performance analysis of
SCADA System communication

2.5
Power Consumption per Node
(mW)

21

IEEE 802.15.4 std (simulation)

Novel IEEE 802.15.4 (simulation)

1.5

A. Novel IEEE802.15.4 MAC Protocol Analysis

The performance evaluation is based on the Wireless
Personal Area Network (WPAN) model included in NS-2
simulator (version 2.34) [12]. No routing protocol is used
since we only use mesh topology and we aim to evaluate our
approach without any influence of the upper layers (network
layer). In our simulation we disabled ARP (Address
Resolution Protocol) since its not needed in Zigbee networks.
The TABLE I summarizes different simulation parameters for
different scenarios.

363

0.5
0
5

10

15

20
25
30
35
Number of Nodes

40

Figure 7: Power Consumption vs. Number of nodes

45

50

2014 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT ASIA)

The transmission network channel reliabilityy is defined as the

probability of successful packet reception [14]. Due to its
reduction of unnecessary backoff time betw
ween packets, the
Novel IEEE802.15.4 offers better reesults than the
IEEE802.15.4std as shown in the following F
Figure 8.
1

For the simulation test, it is assumeed that an analogue value

of 240 from the furthest AMI Gaateway is sent every 30
seconds. SCADA system executes about
a
120 transactions for
the SCADA System communication reliability analysis and
data operation. The following TABL
LE II presents the first 20
data transaction results with 30 AM
MI Gateways in the remote
customer site.
TABLE II
TEST RESULTS FOR 20 MOST SIGNIF
FICANT TRANSACTIONS

0.9
0.8

Time
RTU at DAP
RX
TX

Reliability

0.7
0.6

Id

AMI
TX

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

7:00:00
7:00:30
7:01:00
7:01:30
7:02:00
7:02:30
7:03:00
7:03:30
7:04:00
7:04:30
7:05:00
7:05:30
7:06:00
7:06:30
7:07:00
7:07:30
7:08:00
7:08:30
7:09:00
7:09:30

0.5
0.4
0.3

Novel IEEE 802.15.4 (simulatio

on)
IEEE 802.15.4 std (simulation)

0.2
0.1
0
5

10

15

20 25 30 35
Number of nodes

40

45

50

Figure 8: Network reliability vs. Number oof nodes

B. SCADA Communication and Data Analyysis

Using the Novel IEEE802.15.4MAC
C Protocol, the
following Figure 9 illustrates a simplifiedd simulation test
diagram involving a low voltage/customer remote site with
AMI Gateway or RTUs, a Data Aggregation Point (DAP) with
a Field Interface Unit (FIU) to transit sensed data to a PC.
PC

7:00:05
7:00:35
7:01:06
7:01:36
7:02:05
7:02:35
7:03:05
7:03:35
7:04:05
7:04:35
7:05:05
7:05:35
7:06:05
7:06:35
7:07:05
7:07:35
7:08:05
7:08:35
7:09:05
7:09:35

PC

7:00:06
7:00:36
7:01:07
7:01:37
7:02:06
7:02:36
7:03:06
7:03:37
7:04:06
7:04:36
7:05:08
7:05:39
7:06:07
7:06:36
7:07:06
7:07:36
7:08:07
7:08:38
7:09:06
7:09:36

RX

Data

7:00:12
7:00:42
7:01:12
7:01:40
7:02:12
7:02:43
7:03:11
7:03:42
7:04:12
7:04:42
7:05:13
7:05:44
7:06:13
7:06:42
7:07:10
7:07:42
7:08:12
7:08:43
7:09:12
7:09:42

232.2
232.3
232.2
232.1
230.9
231.2
231.8
230.7
230.3
230.3
230.2
229.7
229.9
229.6
229.4
229.3
229.3
229.5
229.7
229.2

Round
Trip
Time
(sec)
12
12
10
10
12
13
11
12
12
12
13
14
13
12
10
12
12
13
12
12

In the Figure 10 below, it is seen that

t
the minimum Round
Trip Time is about 10 seconds wherreas the maximum Round
Trip Time is 15 seconds which veriifies the end-to-end delay
results from the above Fig. 7 with
h the network size of 31
nodes.

DNP3.0 Protocol over RS-232

16
DAP
P: FIU/RTU
Round Trip Time (sec)

14

TCP/IP

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Transacctions
Figure 10: Round Trip Time vs. Transaction

: RTU or AMI Gateway in Remote Custom

mer Site

The following Figure 11shows the SCADA System goodput

(G) which is the ratio between the data received correctly and
the total transmitted data [15] and it is calculated as follow:

Figure 9: Simulation Test Setup Configuuration

364

R
T

D
D

(5)

2014 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT ASIA)

[6].

0.97

Goodput

0.965

[7].

0.96
0.955

[8].

0.95
0.945
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

[9].

Transaction
Figure 11: Goodput vs. Transaction

[10].

V.

CONCLUSION AND PERSEPECTIVES

In this paper a Novel Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 MAC Protocol

for SCADA Low Voltage Smart Grid Distribution Systems is
developed. As it is presented in Figures 6, 7 & 8, the new
model offers better network performance to the existing
Zigbee/IEEE802.15.4 Protocol in term of end-to-end delay,
power consumption and network reliability, respectively. To
validate the proposed model, a simplified simulation test was
conducted for SCADA Communication and Data Analysis.
As it can be seen from Fig. 11 & 12, the Round Trip Time is
in the range of 10 to 14 seconds whilst the goodput is
between 95.5% and 97%. These results are very motivating
and expose various research perspectives. In the future work,
we plan to include more remote customer sites and test the
model on real sensors using the iLive platform [16] with the
Atmel open MAC stack protocol since it provides an open
source implementation of the IEEE802.15.4 standard [17].

[11].

[12].
[13].

[14].

ACKNOWLEDGMENT (HEADING 5)
The authors wish to thank the International Islamic
University Malaysia (IIUM) and the Renewable Energy
Research Group (RERG), Faculty of Engineering.
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