Remote Monitoring at Distribution Network of Dynamically Constrained Working Areas

Abstract

Smart5Grid exploits the robustness and flexibility enabled by the 5-th generation (5G) mobile network technology to contribute an open and adaptable platform for reliable testing, validation, and operation of Network Applications (NetApps), addressing the challenges of the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) production and those of the operation of the active power distribution ecosystem, in particular. Smart5Grid aims to support current energy sector and future smart grid stakeholders through the adaptation of 5G networks and the support of the respective NetApps that will be developed and validated on real power grid facilities. Smart5Grid intends to provide a more secure, flexible, efficient, scalable and real-time communication framework for modern smart grids. Through remote inspection and control of automatically delimited working areas, the capabilities of the created Smart5Grid 5G platform will facilitate the improvement of working conditions for power grid maintenance crews and inspection workers. In this paper, we presented the methodology of the Smart5Grid project, which will enable remote inspections in high-risk areas and real-time execution by supporting various distribution network applications and providing accurate results and information on the operational condition of power grid assets via augmented reality. If maintenance work is undertaken, realtime control will be enabled to support working procedures remotely and automatically, without putting employees in potentially harmful conditions.

A network application approach towards 5G and beyond critical communications use cases

“…Through Service Function Chaining, network traffic can be directed to flow through one or more NFs, thus, forming more complex end-toend network services out of NF chains. Network Applications harness these chains, either as standalone, or as building blocks of integrated software, to unlock more complex network services for vertical systems (Apostolakis et al, 2021;Arampatzis et al, 2021;Gallego-Madrid et al, 2022;Grigoriou et al, 2022;Martinez-Alpiste et al, 2022;Moscatelli et al, 2022;Porcu et al, 2022;Slamnik-Kriještorac et al, 2022). But beyond chaining VNFs, Network Applications are meant to enable verticals to exploit 5G network capabilities exposed through common Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which in turn, simplifies largescale deployment of their services.…”

“…A common paradigm, followed across 5G PPP initiatives, toward simplifying this implementation and deployment of Network Applications is the adoption of a DevOps (Development and Operations) methodology driven by a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) practice (Patachia-Sultanoiu et al, 2021;Trantzas et al, 2021;Koumaras et al, 2022;Trantzas et al, 2022). These favour a workflow for microservices architectural-style design and containerized deployment of network services and applications (Grigoriou et al, 2022;Margetis et al, 2022).…”