Design and implementation of a cross-platform sensor network for smart grid transmission line monitoring

Slow information feedback and hesitation to relay the information to other power stations was a major contributor to North America's northeast blackout of 2003. Had fault information been properly passed on, the blackout area would have been much smaller. From experience, it can be seen that having the knowledge of knowing exactly when and what is happening on the power distribution grid is extremely valuable. This paper proposes and develops a practical, self configuring, sampling and forwarding scheme for smart grid transmission line monitoring and presents a hierarchical communication topology. The developed prototype operates successfully and its functionality is documented in detail. In addition, descriptive Unified Modelling Language (UML) diagrams are presented to allow for understanding and implementation of the concepts behind our proposed design.