Design and implementation of packet analyzer for IEC 61850 communication networks in smart grid

Abstract

In the aspect of stable operation for smart grid, the combination of communication technology is an important component. This paper proposes the design and implementation of a packet analyzer dedicated to IEC 61850 for effectively analyzing standard protocols for IEC 61850 communication networks. A substation automation system consists of a station, bay, and process level. Since the amount of packets is massive in IEC 61850, we need to develop a packet analyzer for analyzing communications between the substation automation system server and client, which demands real-time operation and high reliability. Our packet analyzer is implemented with FLA (fast later access) and DPI (deep packet inspection) features as a network application analyzing only IEC 61850 communication protocols. The experimental results show that our packet analyzer outperforms the existing Wireshark program significantly in terms of the packet analysis time.