Description: The increase in demand for bandwidth due to multimedia data transmission over wireless networks and the simultaneous increase in wireless services to the users has led to the emergence and design of new communication networks like smart grid communication and device-to-device (D2D) communication networks. Communication between different entities in a smart grid communication system is an integral part of the smart grid infrastructure which includes wired and wireless transmissions. Power line communication (PLC) being one of the wired technologies is proposed and used in smart grid systems and provides a cost-effective method for data transmission as it utilizes the available power cables for transmission and thus ensures high coverage of the PLC network for data transmission. Some of the limitations of PLC like the lack of a standard widely accepted channel model and signal attenuation in the cases when the data signals need to cross the transformers have led to the use of hybrid technology for smart grid solutions. The hybrid solution involves the use of wireless communication along with PLC. One of the proposed wireless technologies for integration with the wired technology for the smart grid is D2D communication which involves communication between wireless devices in proximity without using the network infrastructure. Thus, the project targets to study two different network scenarios. The first scenario considers a hybrid smart grid communication network with a PLC channel at the transmitter side and a D2D-enabled cellular network at the receiver side. The second scenario considers a cooperative downlink D2D NOMA communication system with various relaying schemes with a direct link between the users and the base station. Thus, the proposed project would establish and effectively design the hybrid communication network utilizing D2D, PLC, and NOMA technologies and achieve reliable bidirectional communication in smart grid networks.

Description: Some  of  the  most  crucial  Internet  of  Things  (IoT) applications  that  have  gained  traction  recently  are  based  on  a continuous  stream  of  data  that  enables  quick  decision-making and has proven to be useful in business such as banks, manufacturing  or  marketing.  Therefore,  the  success  of  IoT  applications is  not  only  based  on  their  ability  to  gather  large  amounts  of data,  but  also  on  their  ability  to  provide  data  that  is  consistent and  pertinent.  From  the  perspective  of  wireless  networks,  these properties  can  be  reached  through  QoS  objectives  such  as  a maximum  delay  or  a  maximum  packet  error  rate.  However, hardware-based architectures are difficult to set when heterogeneous QoS objectives coexist in wireless networks, which limits the potential of applications based on deployments of IoT devices. Hence, this project, we proposes the development of software-defined gateways (SD-GWs) for reliable IoT communications. The deployment of these SD-GWs  represents  an  alternative  solution  aiming  at  handling both  a  vast  number  of  devices  and  the  volume  of  data  they will  be  pouring  into  the  network.

This project aims to adequately address the common challenges of a software-defined gateway (SD-GW) design to provide reliable connectivity and services to 5G IoT applications. The SD-GW would manage the sporadic communications from a massive number of heterogeneous IoT devices and facilitate local traffic offloading proficiently. Also, it would aggregate the data from several IoT devices which are clustered geographically and would also work as an access point to the internet. Moreover, it would implement the physical, link, and network layers aiming at supporting multiple wireless interfaces. In terms of standards, it could connect with the low-power IoT devices using IEEE802.15.4 or near-field communications (NFC) for supporting downstream transmissions and it could utilize cellular communications for facilitating upstream transmissions towards the Internet.