Design of an Industrial IoT-Based Monitoring System for Power Substations

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept allows objects to share data through wired or wireless connections for communication purposes. The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is an extended concept of IoT that refers to an integration of data acquisition, communication, and processing on a real-time network. Currently, IIoT has been involved with the development of smart grids in many applications. As the operation of power systems is extremely time-critical, low-latency communication needs to be considered for most control and monitoring applications. Real-time capability of IoT is considered as a key feature for monitoring and control applications of power systems. Therefore, system operators can use the real-time monitoring system to provide better decisions for both technical- and financial-related matters. In this article, a high-speed IIoT-based monitoring system with recording functions is developed and implemented for a power system substation. Due to the high reliability and processing speed of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), an FPGA-embedded controller is adopted in this system. The IoT platform also provides remote visualization for system operators in real-time. This article mainly aims to provide a practical application that was implemented and tested in a real-power substation. The system incorporates the features of an IoT platform with the needs of high-speed real-time applications while using a single high-resolution time source as the reference for both steady-state and transient conditions.