A time-sensitive networking-enabled synchronized three-phase and phasor measurement-based monitoring system for microgrids

This paper presents the design and implementation of a Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) protocol-enabled synchronized measurement-based monitoring system for microgrids. The proposed approach synchronizes and prioritizes the communication nodes, allowing it to transfer ultra-high three-phase sampled data and phasors. TSN is achieved by Quality of Service (QoS) profile software library. This allows control, monitoring, traffic scheduling, and prioritization. Some buses in a microgrid may have priority over others; and this can be prioritized at the data level too, where a part of the information is more critical than the others. The advantages of utilizing the TSN protocol on a microgrid with the approach proposed are: it is an alternative to GPS technology, three-phase data can be exchanged at much faster rate and data traffic in the network can be shaped with low packet loss, and low latency, in addition to providing interoperability through Data Distribution Services (DDS). These enhancements improve the communication reliability and enable distributed control, resulting in avoidance of any bottlenecks in the communications network. This proposed approach is implemented and demonstrated in a laboratory-scale microgrid. The results obtained, verify low latency and high throughput of the entire system while meeting the TSN and QoS requirements.