An adaptive wireless resource allocation scheme with QoS guaranteed in smart grid

Data transmission via wireless communication is crucial for smart grid. Wireless resource allocation is applied to provide different levels of Quality-of-Service (QoS) in wireless communication systems. In this paper, we propose an Adaptive Wireless Resource Allocation (AWRA) scheme with Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee, which includes channel allocation and time scheduling. According to QoS requirements, packets are assigned one of three different priorities, so that AWRA performs flexible and efficient channel allocation based on packets' priorities, thus satisfying a specific QoS requirement. Given transmission power and Packet Loss Rate (PLR), a mathematical optimization framework is formulated for maximizing the total capacity. Using the channels' quality indicated by Signal Noise Ratio (SNR) of a node, the proposed scheme allocates the channels to the predefined packet types. An adaptive-scheduling scheme based on the Residual Life Time (RLT) of packets is further introduced, where the value of RLT determined by the threshold of packet's tolerable waiting time is updated after each transmission. The proposed method aims to ensure the packets' QoS requirements by transmitting the packets with high priority on the high-quality channels. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm may considerably reduce the data drop rate and satisfies the packets' QoS requirements of smart grid.