Decreased time delay and security enhancement recommendations for AMI smart meter networks

In this paper we consider a variety of real world AMI smart meter networking scenarios. We examine the network performance as a function the following parameters: the size of the network, node scheduling, and polling interval (period) under normal conditions. Then we introduce malevolent agents to the network to demonstrate the effects of their actions. Although there are several inherent security related issues involving wireless network the most relevant and attacks to launch against the de facto networking protocols used by AMI smart meters is a black hole attack. Focusing on the black hole attack we demonstrate, through simulations, how to avoid these attacks by creating dedicated paths between the source (smart meter) and the sink collecting the information (access point). In addition to this, we simulate a network of nodes that use a hybrid routing protocol when time sensitive data is needed in order to ensure that outages do not occur due to excess demand.