Network Coding Based Encryption System for Advanced Metering Infrastructure

In a smart grid system, the metering data collected by smart meters (SMs) and transferred via an Advanced Metering Infrastructure to the utility for billing purposes, and to the demand-response system to achieve cost effective resource allocation. The collected data at the SMs are sent to aggregators (AGRs), which in turn forward these data to a higher layer data collection system using secured communications. However, metering data are typically transferred between SMs and AGRs over wireless multi-hop communication networks. Due to the broadcast nature of wireless transmissions, the communications between a SM and AGR are susceptible to many security attacks. We argue that advanced network coding (NC) technology can be utilized to address this problem. We propose a novel system that supports data collection security at AGR by encrypting metering data transmitted between SMs and AGR using NC technology. Our innovative scheme eliminates the use of previously specified public key encryption system between SMs and AGR, which consequently makes our system very efficient. Analyses show that our proposed scheme enhances robustness and throughput of data routing in the wireless multi-hop network between SMs and AGR while maintaining a strong security.