ZTE

ZTE Communications ›› 2015, Vol. 13 ›› Issue (3): 13-20.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1673-5188.2015.03.003

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Secure Communication Networks in the Advanced Metering Infrastructure of Smart Grid

Feng Ye, Yi Qian   

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68124, USA
  • Received:2015-04-21 Online:2015-09-25 Published:2015-09-25
  • About author:Feng Ye received his BS degree from the Department of Electronics Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China, in 2011. Currently he is pursuing his PhD degree at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE, USA. His current research interests include smart grid communications and energy optimization, big data analytics and applications, cyber security and communication network security, wireless communications and networks.
    Yi Qian (yi.qian@unl.edu) received his PhD degree in electrical engineering from Clemson University. He is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Before joining UNL, he worked in the telecommunications industry, academia, and the government. His research interests include information assurance and network security, computer networks, mobile wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks, wireless and multimedia communications and networks, and smart grid communications. Several of his recent journal articles on wireless network design and wireless network security are among the most accessed papers in the IEEE Digital Library.
  • Supported by:
    The work was supported by the National Science Fourdation under Grant No. CNS-1423408.

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Abstract: In this paper, a security protocol for the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in smart grid is proposed. Through the AMI, cus?tomers and the service provider achieve two?way communication. Real?time monitoring and demand response can be applied be?cause of the information exchanged. Since the information contains much privacy of the customer, and the control messages need to be authenticated, security needs to be ensured for the communication in the AMI. Due to the complicated network structure of the AMI, the asymmetric communications, and various security requirements, existing security protocols for other networks can hardly be applied into the AMI directly. Therefore, a security protocol specifically for the AMI to meet the security requirements is proposed. Our proposed security protocol includes initial authentication, secure uplink data aggregation, secure downlink data transmission, and domain secrets update. Compared with existing researches in related areas, our proposed security protocol takes the asymmetric communications of the AMI and various security requirements in smart grid into consideration.

Key words: smart grid, advanced metering infrastructure, network security, privacy