Abstract:
A multi-interface ZigBee building area network
(MIZBAN) for a high-traffic advanced metering infrastructure
(AMI) for high-rise buildings was developed. This supports meter
management functions such as Demand Response for smart
grid applications. To cater for the high-traffic communication
in these building area networks (BANs), a multi-interface management
framework was defined and designed to coordinate the
operation between multiple interfaces based on a newly defined
tree-based mesh (T-Mesh) ZigBee topology, which supports both
mesh and tree routing in a single network. To evaluate MIZBAN,
an experiment was set up in a five-floor building. Based on the
measured data, simulations were performed to extend the analysis
to a 23-floor building. These revealed that MIZBAN yields an
improvement in application-layer latency of the backbone and the
floor network by 75% and 67%, respectively. This paper provides
the design engineer with seven recommendations for a generic
MIZBAN design, which will fulfill the requirement for demand
response by the U.S. government, i.e. a latency of less than 0.25 s.
