An IoT Smart Metering Solution based on IEEE 802.15.4

A Smart Meter (SM) is an electronic device that records and monitors power consumption at time intervals and can send this information to the monitoring and billing center of power companies. Thus, SMs are responsible for providing bi-directional communication between consumers and a Smart Grid central system. However, the development of a reliable SM solution is still a challenge as the majority of current works are limited to theoretical proposals. The deployment of SMs infrastructure in a real testbed is crucial not only for application of theoretical models in real environments but also to address many premises that may emerge in practical scenarios. Then, this paper proposes a low-cost Smart Meter able to provide bidirectional communication between homes and Electric Power Companies (EPC) using IEEE 802.15.4. To present and experimenting the performance of the produced SM, an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) that allows EPCs and users monitoring the energy consumption and billing in real-time through a mobile application was created. In addition to the SM applicability demonstration, a brief network performance assessment to verify the limitations of adopted communication interfaces was considered. Thus, based on real experimentation and demonstration, it was concluded the high applicability and potentiality of the proposed work in real large scale scenarios.