Wireless Sensor Networks Communication QoS-

MAC Model based on DL/T645 protocol

Jianping Wang , Yunhai Dai, Wei Sun, Xiaobing Xu
School of Electrical Engineering and Automation,
Hefei University of Technology, HFUT
Hefei, China
dyh_200504@sina.com
Abstract—According to the power industry DL/T645 protocol protocol and requirement of meter data transmission quality, an
and the characteristics of the meter data transmission, a wireless IEEE802.15.4 QoS communication network, also is presented.
sensor network of automatic meter reading communications
network is proposed. According to statistical feature of DL/T645
II. PRIORITY CLASSIFICATION BASED ON DL/T645
protocol and requirement of meter data transmission quality, an
IEEE802.15.4 QoS (quality of service) communication network, is DL/T645 protocol, also known as multi-function power
presented in this paper. meter communication protocol, contents frame start, the slave
address field, control code, data length, data field, frame check
Keywords-DL/T645 protocol; Wireless Sensor Network; code and longitudinal information “Tab. 1”. The application
IEEE802.15.4; QoS layer can be divided into the request frame, the normal
response, ab-normal response frame from the station by
I. INTRODUCTION different control codes. It’s in Half-duplex communication
Wireless sensor network (WSN) which can collaborate with mode, which means, except radio command the master station
its network of distribution area sensing and gather information, allows only connection with a communication from the station.
becomes one of the most important research focus in the
wireless communications field recent years [1]. Therefore, TABLE I. DL/T645 PROTOCOL FRAME TYPE
WSN has been used widely in national defense and military
Content Type Frame Codes
technology, environmental monitoring, traffic management,
medical equipment, industrial control and other fields. Paper frame start 68H
[2] summarizes some of the major technical problems in the Address Field A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5
WSN applications with the smart grid, and grid transmission
operation. Control Code C

Automatic meter reading (AMR) system, as a kind of Data Length L

economic stability, efficient and reliable and accurate Data Field DATA
measurement system, mainly through the Power Line
Communication (PLC) carrying RS485 [3-4], CDMA, GRPS, Frame Check Code CS
etc [5], which can also through the WSN. Paper [6] introduced Ending Code 16H
a WSN applications based Zigbee in the AMR which shows
Communication process is generally as follows: 1. a request
the stability of data transmission capacity and self-networking
from the main station -> normal response. 2. The main station
capabilities. Paper [7] based DL/T645 and IEEE802.15.4
request -> abnormal response. 3. Main station broadcast
protocols in multi-hop wireless redundant network ensure
command frame -> no response from the station. In order to
reliable data transmission. Although the use of the beacon
transmit data and reduce channel conflict and the transmission
mode, but can not be directly support Quality of Service (QoS)
delay of important data and increase the effective throughput
as in IEEE802.11e protocol. [8] presents an IEEE802.15.4 QoS
across the network, we need divide the frame by data priority
communication network, which is exclusive for distribution
[8]. Taking account of the data packets’ importance, the packet
communication data according to statistical feature of power
priority is not the more the better. So based on the actual
distribution devices location and requirement of power
requirements of the different QoS requirements, AMR
distribution communication quality. Paper [9] can support QoS,
communication packets can be divided into three data packet
also consider the data packet priority, proposing a packet-
prioritizations , as be shown in “Tab. 2”.
managed DCF (PMDCF) which Uses Markov chain method.
But this WSN algorithm hasn’t been used in AMR.
TABLE II. DATA PACKET PRIORITIZATIONS
This paper proposed a wireless sensor network of AMR
communications network according to the power industry Prioritization Data Packet
DL/T645 protocol and the characteristics of the meter data High-priority
Data Writing from the Main Station
transmission. Based on the statistical feature of DL/T645 Broadcast Command
Medium-priority Abnormal Response from Slave Station

978-1-4244-8165-1/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE

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 Prioritization Data Packet
­ 0 m m m
° p = ¦ ¦ ¦ pk , k , k
0 1 2

Data Reading from the Main Station

Low-priority 0 1 2

Normal Response from Slave Station ° k = 2 k =1 k = 0

m
0
m
1 2

° 1
° p = ¦ ¦ p0, k , k
1 2

III. IMPROVED QOS-MAC NETWORK MODEL ® k =1 k = 0

1 2
1 2 (1)
° 2 m
° p = ¦ p0,0, k
2

A. characteristics of data transmission

°
2
k =0
2

According to priority IEEE802.11e [10], high-priority data ° p3 = p0,0, 0

¯
transmission to improve performance at the expense of low
priority at the expense of the quality of data transmission [11]
Data packets from the DL/T645 three different QoS packet TABLE III. NOTATIONS IN ANALYTICAL MODEL
prioritization needs, this paper QoS-MAC layer model in each
Symbol Description
data set three priority data nodes, while using with Collision
Avoidance Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocol (CSMA / N Sensor nodes Number
CA) to prevent access to the queue and the success of the n0 n1 n2 n3 Number of nodes with High/ Medium/Low priority
collision between the other queues, each queue with the package and no package in MAC queue
appropriate access level. In the three priority data, the higher Ts Service time of a package
the priority level of data within the buffer queue priority send,
the higher a priority only if the buffer queue empty, it sends a K The max backoff stage of High-priority packe

lower-priority data buffer queue. This paper also established Pi The probability a channel is idle when CCA is
performed
three priority levels of communication delay model, the The probability a channel is idle in two consecutive
effective channel throughput and packet collision rate in the Pi|i
CCA
mathematical model to measure the WSN in automatic Irom τ The probability of CCA detection
Relationships between of Markov chain model in “Fig. 1”,
λ0 , λ1 , λ2 Data arrival rates of of High-priority / Medium-
priority / Low-priority package
Service rate of High-priority / Medium-priority /
μ0 , μ1 , μ 2
Low-priority package
m0 , m1 , m2 The buffer size of High-priority / Medium-priority /
Low-priority package
The probability of having n0 with High-priority
Qn , n , n packet
0 1 2
and n1 nodes with Low-priority packet and n2
nodes with Low-priority packet in a node
Qn , n , n can be determined by (2).
0 1 2

N!
Qn , n , n = ( p 0 )n ( p1 )n ( p 2 )n ( p 3 )n
0 1 2 3
(2)
0 1 2
n0 !n1 !n2 !n3 !

C. Node rate model of channel conflict

Consider the two consecutive time units the state of
wireless channel, the current state of the channel idle
P = P ⋅ P + P (1 − P ) P P
probability for the i i|i i i|b i
,for i|i ˄ i|b ˅means
Is a unit of time within the previous channel is idle (busy) state
Figure 1. 3D Markov chain model of data priority
of the current channel conditions, the conditional probability
for the idle state. Channel by the probability of a busy state to
P =1/ T T
B. Node buffer queue of Markov chain model idle. i|b tx
. tx means the average packet transmission
time [12]. Therefore, for the three priority node detection
This model is in a concentrated area AMR subnet of the
probability of the channel as in (3)
main WSN, including a coordinator node and N wireless AMR
device node. Assumes that all nodes affect the other channel
and AMR communication data have three priority levels which
­ Pi 0 = 1 / [1 + Ttx ⋅ (1 − Pi|0i )]
stored in three different buffer queues. “ (⋅) 0 ”means the node ° 1 1
which sends high-priority data (1~2 mean the node which ® Pi = 1 / [1 + Ttx ⋅ (1 − Pi|i )] (3)
sends medium-priority or low-priority data). All symbols used ° P 2 = 1 / [1 + T ⋅ (1 − P 2 )]
¯ i tx i |i
in this paper can be found in “Tab. Υ”. Equation (1) describes
the Markov Chain in Fig.1, from which we can solve the For the high-priority data nodes, the channel is idle in both
probability under the conditions of statistical equilibrium [12] the probability of unit of time equal to all other nodes in three

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priority data did not detect the probability of the channel, such K 2 −1 n K 2 −1
Ts2 = ¦ (1 − P ) 2 n
⋅ Pi 2 ⋅[ ¦ (bm2 + 1) + Ttx2 ] + (1 − Pi 2 ) K ⋅ ¦ (bm2 + 1) (13)
2

as in (4). n=0
i
m=0 m =0

N − n0 − n1 N − n0 N − n0
ª Qn , n , n , n º D. The improved WSN model based on DL/T645
Pi|3i = ¦ ¦¦« 0

Q3
1 2 3
(1 − τ 0 ) n − 2 (1 − τ 1 )n (1 − τ 2 ) n −1 »
0 1 2
(4)
n0 = 2 n1 = 0 n2 =1 ¬ ¼ To measure the performance of the improved WSN, we
need to build the following three models:
(5) (6) (7) describe three priority data nodes,
• Propagation delay model.
• Network model of effective data throughput.
N N − n0 N − n0 − n1
ª Qn , n , n º
Pi|0i = ¦¦ ¦ «
0
(1 − τ 0 )n − 2 (1 − τ 1 ) n −1 (1 − τ 2 )n »
1 0 1 2
(5) • Nodes in CSMA / CA channel collision rate model.
n0 = 2 n1 =1 n2 = 0 ¬ Q0 ¼
Propagation delay is obtained from the device node to send
packets from the time difference, including queue wait time
N − n0 N N − n0 − n1
ª Qn , n , n º (priority queue data services with the total time) and the current
Pi1|i = ¦¦ ¦ «
0
(1 − τ 0 )n − 2 (1 − τ 1 )n −1 (1 − τ 2 )n »
1 2 0 1 2
(6) data packet service time. Three priority data services with the
n0 = 2 n1 =1 n2 = 0 ¬ Q1 ¼ type of transmission delay as in (14) (15) (16),

m0 m1 m2
pk , k , k
N − n0 N − n0 − n1 N
ª Qn , n , n º
(7) Td0 = ¦¦¦( k0Ts0 ) (14)
¦ ¦ ¦«
0 1 2

Pi|2i = (1 − τ 0 )n −1 (1 − τ 1 )n (1 − τ 2 )n − 2 »
¦ ¦ ¦
0 1 2 0 1 2
m0 m1 m2
n =2 ¬ Q2 k0 = 2 k1 =1 k2 = 0 p
n0 =1 n1 = 0 2 ¼ k0 = 2 k1 =1 k = 0 k ,k , k
2
0 1 2

Send high priority data τ means node detection probability

0

of the channel, as in (8),

m2 m1 m0
pk , k ,0
Td1 = ¦ ¦[ ¦ 0 1
k0Ts0
¦ ¦ ¦
m0 m1 m2
k2 = 2 k1 =1 k0 = 0
k0 = 2 k1 =1 k2
p
=0 k , k ,k
0 1 2

0 n 0 0 K0 0
K 0 −1
(1 − Pi ) ⋅ Pi ⋅ (n + 1) (1 − Pi ) ⋅ K
τ0 = ¦ + (8)
¦ ¦
n 0 0 K 0 −1
n=0 (b + 1) + T (bm0 + 1) p0, k ,0
m=0 m tx m=0
+ 1
⋅ k1 ⋅ Ts1 ] + Td1 ⋅ λ0 ⋅ Ts0 (15)
¦ ¦ ¦
m0 m1 m2
k0 = 2 k1 =1 k2 = 0
pk , k , k
0 1 2

K0 means the bakeoff time, probability, and detection

channel number of after maximum bakeoff number of K did
not get the channel. Similarly, medium and low priority’s K 2 −1 n K 2 −1
Ts2 = ¦ (1 − P ) 2 n
⋅ Pi 2 ⋅[ ¦ (bm2 + 1) + Ttx2 ] + (1 − Pi 2 ) K ⋅ ¦ (bm2 + 1)
2

channel probability of detection, as in (9), (10) i

n=0 m= 0 m =0

1
K 1 −1
(1 − Pi1 ) n ⋅ Pi1 ⋅ ( n + 1) (1 − Pi1 ) K ⋅ K 1
τ1 = ¦ + (9) m0
pk , k ,0 p0, k ,0
¦ ¦ ⋅ k2 ⋅ Ts2 ] (16)
n K −1
1

n =0 (bm1 + 1) + Ttx1 (bm1 + 1) +¦ 0 1

k1Ts1 + 1

¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ k = 2 ¦ k =1 ¦ k = 0 pk ,k , k
m=0 m =0 m0 m1 m2 m0 m1 m2
k0 = 0
k0 = 2 k1 =1 k2
p
=0 k , k ,k0 1 2 0 1 2
0 1 2

2 Effective network throughput is the actual transmission of

K 2 −1
(1 − Pi 2 ) n ⋅ Pi 2 ⋅ (n + 1) (1 − Pi 2 ) K ⋅ K 2
τ2 = ¦ + (10) data throughput and output of the ratio. Effective network
¦ ¦
n K 2 −1
n=0
m =0
(bm2 + 1) + Ttx2 m =0
(bm2 + 1) throughput is a measure of high, medium and low priority data
packet transmission reliability parameters. Three priorities
were effective throughput as in (17)
As μ means packet sending rates, Ts means the average
time of packets service. IEEE802.15.4 the MAC layer protocol
in the data the cost of the average service time is mainly ­ N N − n 0 N − n 0 − n1
[1 − (1 − Pi 0 ) K ] L0
¦¦ ¦ (n )
0

CSMA / CA bakeoff mechanism takes time and transmission ° Qn 0

, n1 , n 2 0
Ts0
°G = n 0 = 2 n1 = 1 n2 = 0
time. The three priority packets of the average service time as ° 0 N ·λ 0
in (11) (12) (13), ° N N − n 0 N − n 0 − n1
[1 − (1 − Pi1 ) K ] L1
¦¦ ¦ , n , n ( n1 ) (17)
1

°° Qn
® n0 = 2 n1 = 1 n2 = 0
0 1 2
Ts1
° G1 = N ·λ1
K 0 −1 n K 0 −1 ° N − n 0 N − n 0 − n1
Ts0 = ¦ (1 − Pi0 )n ⋅ Pi 0 ⋅[ ¦ (bm0 + 1) + Ttx0 ] + (1 − Pi 0 )K ⋅ ¦ (bm0 + 1)
0
(11) °
¦¦ ¦
N
Qn (n [1 − (1 − Pi 2 ) K ] L 2
)
2

n=0 m=0 m =0
° n0 = 2 n1 = 1 n2 = 0
0
, n1 , n2 2
Ts 2
°G 2 =
°̄ N ·λ 2

K 1 −1 n K 1 −1 WSN nodes in automatic meter reading data sent CSMA /

Ts1 = ¦ (1 − P ) 1 n
⋅ Pi1 ⋅ [ ¦ (bm1 + 1) + Ttx1 ] + (1 − Pi1 ) K ⋅ ¦ (bm1 + 1) (12)
1

i CA mechanism, the channel collision rate is defined as the

n =0 m =0 m =0
multi-node can not seize the channel conflict caused by the

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physical channel for data packet transmission failure rate. The
failure rate for three priority packets as in (18),
­ F0 = (1 − Pi 0 ) K 0
° 1 K
® F1 = (1 − Pi ) 1
(18)
°̄ F2 = (1 − Pi 2 ) K 2
IV. SIMULATION ANALYSIS
We evaluated the WSN of AMR with the depicted network
model. In the testing network, WSN subnets consist of a WSN
coordinator and ten nodes. We consider the length of packet of
each meter reading is 50B, transmission time of occupied
channel of node (include transmission time, response time and
Inter Frame Space) is 157 symbols. The length of data in buffer
queue of three kinds of priority is 6 packets (300Byts). In the
collision mechanism of the service, consider the maximum
bakeoff times of data with high priority as 15 and bakeoff
times each time as 20 symbols. Bakeoff times of data with
medium priority or low priority is set according to protocol of
IEEE802.15.4, i.e. the maximum bakeoff times is 5 and
bakeoff time index .
Figure 2. 'DWD6HQGLQJ'HOD\
Figure 3. Effective throughput
Consider that each node will send data respectively with
high priority, medium priority and low priority. In the
experiment, there are two different data output rate. Generally,
data output rate with high priority is 8kbps. In particular case,
data output rate with high priority will double(that is 16kbps).
Thus, consider data with low priority as 0.4kbps ,increasing to
24kbps.
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Figure 4. Collision Probability
The effect among the datum with high priority, medium
priority and low priority is shown in the figure 2, figure 3 and
figure 4. In the figure, HP is performance curve of data with
high priority. MP is performance curve of data with medium
priority. LP is performance curve of data with low priority
V. CONCLUSION
According to the data transmission DL/T645 requirements
of AMR, a QoS-MAC network model is proposed in this paper.
Test results showed that the proposed QoS-MAC can service
the network data with different transmission according to
different emergency and reliability. Compared with the
monitoring data with low priority, the data with high priority
have low network latency, CSMA/CA channel collision rate
and high effective throughout rate. The data with medium
priority is also less affected.
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