Software Defined Networks for Energy Internet and Smart Grid Communications

Submission Deadline: 31 December 2019

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Software Defined Networks for Energy Internet and Smart Grid Communications.

A new network paradigm of Software Defined Networks (SDN) is being widely adapted to efficiently monitor and manage the communication networks with a global perspective. SDN has a key networking feature that separates control and data plane. Today, due to its inherent benefits, SDN has been widely applied to various networking domains including data centers, WAN, enterprise, Optical Networks, Under Water Sensor Networks (UWSN), Energy Internet (EI), and Smart Grid (SG).

Energy Internet (EI) and Smart Grid (SG) are two complementary terms. Energy Internet refers to the vision of integrating future electricity grid into the web. Smart Grid refers to the advancement of current electricity grid with the help of information and communication technologies. The key feature that distinguishes EI from the SG is its tight coupling of EI with the Internet. One might argue that EI is the advanced form of Smart Grid. Nevertheless, as both EI and SG technologies differ in various ways, especially in terms of implementation and applications, there are fundamental research questions that are yet to be addressed. In a traditional Internet scenario, organizations have local area networks (LANs). These small LANs are from the small geographical areas such as cites and are connected together to form  Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), which are then inter-connected together to form  Wide Area Networks (WANs). Likewise, in an EI scenario, a world-wide energy-Wide Area Network (e-WAN) is composed of networked regional small-scale energy-Local Area Networks (e-LANs). Similar to a network router in the traditional Internet, we have an e-router in the EI, which is responsible for  power delivery and information forwarding.

In order to realize full functionality of EI and SG, an efficient communication system would be essential, i.e., a networked system and infrastructure with fast reliable information flow capability, and support for good system observability and controllability. Such communication systems would facilitate the EI and SG to achieve secure, reliable, and safe power and information exchange. Therefore, SDN has an immense potential in playing a significant role in managing the overall network and communication entities for the future EI and SG systems. By adapting the concepts of SDN in the current as well as to future EI and SG systems, the efficiency and resiliency of the entire system could be significantly improved by further fueling the growth of research and industry methods in EI and SG.

Overall, the goal of this proposed Special Section in IEEE Access is to publish and capture the most recent advances and trends in the promising technologies of Energy Internet and Smart Grid, particularly from the perspective of Software Defined Networks.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Software Defined Networks for Smart Grid (SG)
  • Software Defined Networks for Energy Internet (EI)
  • SDN-based Internet of Things (IoT) for Energy Internet
  • Architectures and Protocols for SDN-based SG and EI
  • Resource Allocation Techniques for SDN-based EI and SG
  • Routing and MAC Protocols for SDN-based EI and SG
  • Renewable Energy Resources and SDN-based EI and SG
  • Performance Analysis, Testbed and Simulation Tools for SDN-based EI and SG
  • Big Data Analytics for SDN-based EI and SG
  • SDN Monitoring and Management Applications in HANs, NANs, WANs, and AMI
  • SG and EI Communication Monitoring techniques through SDN

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Associate Editor:  Mubashir Husain Rehmani, TSSG, WIT, Ireland


Guest Editors:

  1. Alan Davy, TSSG, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland
  2. Brendan Jennings, TSSG, Waterford Institute of Technology , Ireland
  3. Zeeshan Kaleem, COMSATS, Pakistan
  4. Akhilesh Thyagaturu, Intel Mobile Communications, USA
  5. Hassnaa Moustafa, Intel Corporation, USA
  6. Al-Sakib Khan Pathan, Southeast University, Bangladesh

 

Relevant IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications
  2. Power Quality and Harmonics Issues of Future and Smart Grids
  3. Battery Energy Storage and Management Systems


IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief:
Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact:  mshrehmani@gmail.com