Improved hybrid wireless mesh protocol with modified routing metric in smart meter networks

Wireless communications are recommended in smart meter network at neighborhoods. Due to the limited transmission range of smart meters, some of them may serve as relays to enable successful communications. Therefore, routing protocols are required to help smart meters find appropriate routes in smart meter networks and increase the communication performance. Routing protocols such as Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) and Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol (HWMP) are two candidates for smart meter networks. Compared with AODV, HWMP has an advantage of prioritizing traffics for different applications of smart grid. However, since HWMP is originally designed for wireless mesh networks, it experiences performance degradation when directly applied to smart meter networks. In this paper, a new routing metric is proposed for HWMP to enhance its performance in smart meter networks. The new routing metric considers both the transmission probability of links and the sum of overhead frames. Extensive simulations are conducted considering two modes of HWMP (i.e., proactive mode and on-demand mode) with a network topology based on a varied size of grid topology. Simulation results verify that the performance has been improved in terms of average packet delivery ratio and average throughput by adopting the new routing metric.