Validation of SDN Emulator Based on Mininet and ONOS Controller for IEC 61850 Packet Delay Measurement

To guarantee the electrical power stability for economic and industry growth, the power grid would need to adopt the technology of smart grid with the enablement of new communication technologies. IEC 61850 has been introduced for the upgrading of an electrical substation to digital substation composed of many digital devices that help automate the electrical power control for the purpose of power stability. Sampled Values is a basic message protocol for the application of Wide Area Measurement and Control (WAMPAC), which requires manageable communication in a wide area over Ethernet layer. In this regard, Software Defined Networking (SDN) has recently been introduced as one of the communication technologies with that capability. This paper has reported on our first-step findings towards the development of a tool to help checking the feasibility of SDN technology in smart grid applications. Since the smart grid applications must be delay-critical, timing performances become essential and all the modules to be used in the tool development must be verified on that aspect. Particularly, for this paper, Mininet and ONOS controller have been tested. Their ability to emulate transmission link delay values is quantified and reported for the practical range of smart grid application usages.