Cyclic Beam Switching for Smart Grid Networks

In the future, data will be collected from a wide range of devices (the Internet of Things or IoT). This may be from simple transmit only devices such as sensors or devices with two way communications so control information can be sent to the device. A Smart Grid depends on such an infrastructure since it is used to collect energy usage data which is then used for billing as well as to make decisions for the power grid or to control individual locations (e.g., to increase air conditioner temperature settings when a brownout is imminent). Typically, in these networks, most of the communication is in the uplink direction. Furthermore, high reliability and low latency is required but with minimal network infrastructure cost. In this paper we investigate the use of Cyclic Beam Switching for the case of an Advanced Metering Infrastructure used, for example, in Smart Grids. The proposed approach is simple with little additional cost and one can significantly increase the coverage area while maintaining acceptable reliability and low latency.