Cellular IoT for Mobile Autonomous Reporting in the Smart Grid

Wireless access technologies are being embedded in utility meters, health devices, public safety systems, among others. These devices have low processing power and communicate at low data rates. New communication standards are being developed to support these machine-type communications MTC, such as Cellular Internet of Things CIoT, which is being developed by the third generation partnership project 3GPP. CIoT introduces cooperative ultra-narrow band C-UNB communications. It supports ad-hoc uplink transmissions, delay-tolerant downlink transmissions, and a simple authentication scheme. The C-UNB approach is proposed for Mobile Autonomous Reporting MAR applications, but it is not clear if it can be used for smart grid systems, such as sensors and smart meters in the Advanced Metering Infrastructure AMI. In this paper, the authors review the C-UNB approach, study its performance in terms of collision rate and throughput, and discuss its potential for smart grid reporting applications.