Executive SummaryA key mission of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) is conducting research and development to enhance the security and reliability of the nation's energy infrastructure. Improving the security of control systems, which enable the automated control of our energy production and distribution, is critical for protecting the energy infrastructure and the integral function that it serves. The DOE-OE Control Systems Security Program is actively pursuing advanced security solutions for control systems.The focus of this report is analyzing how, where, and what type of wireless communications are suitable for deployment in the electric power system and to inform implementers of their options in wireless technologies. The discussions in this report are applicable to enhancing both the communications infrastructure of the current electric power system and new smart system deployments.The work described in this report includes a survey of the following wireless technologies: In this document, we provide a concise summary of the technical underpinnings of each wireless technology. We also outline the feature set and the strengths and weaknesses of each technology. Our intent is to provide enough detail to our readers such that when considering wireless for a particular application, they will know enough to ask the right questions to get the features and capabilities desired.For obtaining data communications coverage quickly and inexpensively over a large geographic area, both WiMAX and 3G/4G cellular technologies should be considered. WiMAX at the present holds a bandwidth and latency advantage over 3G cellular communications; however, with the imminent LTE deployment from multiple carriers, we believe this advantage will be short-lived. Unlike WiMAX deployments, LTE will mostly reuse existing cellular networks and should be a straightforward evolution of the 3G cellular networks. Both of these technologies operate over licensed spectrum and therefore should be protected against unintended interference. In terms of scalability, we know that the cellular networks are capable of accommodating hundreds of millions of subscribers while providing both voice and data communications. WiMAX networks have been deployed to provide wireless local loop service successfully. However, presently, WiMAX networks only support a small fraction of users compared to 3G cellular networks. Whether using WiMAX or 3G/4G cellular, we recommend a combination of application-level security and virtual private networking (VPN) for transporting electric power system information over these public networks.For creating a wireless sensor network for both data gathering and command/control applications, there are three alternatives, all based on the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol stack: ZigBee, WirelessHART, and ISA100.11a. We expect ZigBee to be a common choice for electric power system networking within the iv home. While there are legitimate concerns for the security properties of ZigBee ...

Handoff is the procedure by which a user's radio link is transferred between radio ports in the network without an interruption of the user connection. In this article, we discuss how a wireless asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network may reroute a user connection during a handoff. The authors propose a novel procedure called "Nearest Common Node Rerouting (NCNR)." NCNR is designed to perform the rerouting of user connections due to a handoff event in a fast and efficient manner. The authors conclude by comparing NCNR to other rerouting schemes discussed in the literature.

Status of this MemoThis document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

The objective of this paper is to present a conceptual architecture of a Building Energy Management Open Source Software (BEMOSS) platform. BEMOSS is an open source operating system that is expected to improve sensing and control of equipment in small-and medium-sized commercial buildings, reduce energy consumption and help implement demand response (DR). It aims to offer: scalability, robustness, plug and play, open protocol, interoperability, cost-effectiveness, as well as local and remote monitoring. In this paper, four essential layers of BEMOSS software architecture --namely User Interface, Application and Data Management, Operating System and Framework, and Connectivity layers --are presented. A laboratory test bed to demonstrate the functionality of BEMOSS located at the Advanced Research Institute of Virginia Tech is also briefly described.Index Terms-Building energy management, open source, and demand response.

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