Efficient and robust data availability solution for hybrid PLC/RF systems

Abstract Recently, many efforts have been made by researchers, standardization organizations, telecommunication industries and energy providers, in order to realize robust and efficient communication in Smart Grids. To meet these requirements, a new generation of Narrow-Band Power Line Communication (NB-PLC) protocols have been proposed. The main advantage of PLC systems is that they require no additional costs in terms of deployment and wiring since the existing power cables can be used to transmit power and data, simultaneously. The PLC technology has many applications within Smart Grids such as advanced metering infrastructure, distributed automation, street light control, and public charging. One popular PLC standard is the Power-line Related Intelligent Metering Evolution (PRIME). This technology enables different types of Smart Grid services over electricity distribution networks. In PRIME, the security is implemented at the data link layer and it targets data confidentiality and message authentication, but not data availability. In this paper, we propose an efficient and robust security solution to guard against availability and confidentiality attacks. The main goal of the proposed solution is to enhance the security and reliability of PLC communication among end nodes with minimum overhead in terms of resources, complexity and latency. The solution is based on the Information Dispersal Algorithm (IDA) and the physical characteristics of PLC channels. In particular, end nodes benefit from a shared working key and the random channel parameters to derive the cryptographic primitives that are used in the proposed scheme. The security and performance tests showed that the proposed solution introduces a low overhead while offering a high degree of availability and reinforcing confidentiality.