Master Thesis Proposal Mesh-net for Smart Grids Practical Verification System Contact Persons at Wireless@kth: Mats Nilson, matsnils@kth.se, Cicek Cavdar, cavdar@kth.se Starting Time: As soon as possible Contact Person at National Instruments: Payman Tehrani, payman.tehrani@ni.com Background This proposal targets the performance measurement and proof of concept in an M2M communication solution for smart energy grids. The electrical grid is today based on few points of generation and vast amount of user connections. This grid is now under a slow conversion where energy will be generated locally in a large number of locations (solar, wind, sea waves, etc.). To support this increased complexity the need for monitoring sensors, control points, user data etc. is rapidly also increasing. Efficient and reliable communication solutions need to be designed to support the needs. Problem to solve The use of node to node communicating mesh net strategies to support connections in the smart grid has been proposed. In detail a method called Network Coding has also been introduced to improve the reliability of the system. First problem: A practical implementation will be needed to validate the solution and measure the performance. Content This thesis aims at a high level design of a mesh net test bed (both hw and sw). The basic idea is to use commercially available DSP platforms, the so called “USRP”: - Training at National Instruments to use the testing platforms and tools - Refining a project proposal including a testbed implementation strategy - Small test implementation References Vinnova EMPower project (start 2016) National Instruments USRP, http://www.ni.com/sdr/usrp/