Energy-efficient data transmission with proportional rate fairness for NANs of smart grid communication network

Abstract

In smart grid, the neighborhood area network (NAN) serves as a bridge connecting smart meters and meter data management system (MDMS) and is one of the most important components of the smart grid communication network. In this work, we study the energy-efficient data transmissions from NAN gateways (i.e., routers) to the concentrator that connects the MDMS. Particularly, to assure that each router associated with diverse number of associated smart meters can achieve a required data rate, a set of proportional rate fairness constraints are imposed into the optimization problem. In this case, an optimization problem that balances energy efficiency and fairness is formulated. Due to the fractional form of objective function, the combinatorial constraints on channel allocation variables, and the proportional rate fairness requirements, the formulated energy-efficient data transmission problem is non-convex and extremely computationally complex. In order to solve the problem efficiently, firstly, a subtractive transformation is introduced to handle the objective function, and an iterative algorithm based on Dinkelbach method is proposed; then for the inner loop optimization problem in each iteration, a low-complexity suboptimal algorithm that separates channel allocation and power distribution is developed. Finally, numerical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm converges in a few steps and achieves a near-optimal energy efficiency performance.