OpenPLC and lib61850 Smart Grid Testbed: Performance Evaluation and Analysis of GOOSE Communication

Datasets are essential for training machine learning algorithms and ensuring accurate classifications. However, obtaining such datasets, especially those relating to IEC61850 GOOSE messages in smart grids, poses a significant challenge for researchers. Privacy regulations and potential misuse of industrial data have compounded this problem, necessitating alternative methods for generating datasets. In this paper, we detail the design and implementation of a simulation testbed that uses MATLAB/Simulink, OpenPLC and the lib61850 library. This testbed simulates a smart grid system and generates IEC61850 GOOSE messages for dataset creation. We assess the testbed performance using a simplified smart grid model with multiple protection relays, also known as Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), enabling us to measure the response time of the protection system under various fault conditions. The testbed is flexible, allowing for design alterations and expansions, which aids researchers in generating diverse datasets to represent various smart grid networks. This flexibility will increase the availability of valuable datasets and enable the broader application of machine-learning techniques in this domain.