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Samuel Chandler English 3302 Tom Akbai Unit 1 Final Draft 22 January 2014 The Future of Wireless Networking With the establishment of smart phones and other reliable wireless communication devices, wireless networking has proved worthy of providing connectivity to people and devices around the world. The Smart Grid Project offers the next step for the nations power distribution by connecting all devices in a network that will optimize power dissipation. This means that house hold electrical appliances will all be connected over a network that will share one central information database. A house can then allocate power in an efficient manner with smart meters. With the development of this smart grid, new technologies have to be adopted to support a huge network. Appliances will be required to constantly transmit and receive data in order to keep up with power optimization. This presents a problem because it means that the energy demand of smart appliances will go up with constant data transmission. A solution to this problem lies in compressive sensing. The idea of compressive sensing in a smart grid wireless network means that much of the redundant signals will be discarded and thus energy will be saved. A technical paper discussing the feasibility of compressive sensing, specifically its niche in smart meters, Compressive Sensing for Smart Grid Wireless Network March 2013 by Wei Song, Baoju Zhang and Xiaorong Wu is a valuable source coming from the College of Physics and Electronic Information in Normal University, China. The paper divulges into the basics of compressive sensing and how previous smart grid feasibility issues are solved1(p. 179).

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Compressive sensing addresses the following specific issues previously found in the smart grid idea. Smart Meters integrate more new features, so it acquires not only active power data but also voltage, current, grid frequency, power factor, harmonic components, etc. smart meter must acquire the data with the high sampling rate that results in the generation of high volumes of data 1(p. 180). The authors of the paper summarize these points early to introduce the reader to all of the issues that are solved with their new idea of smart meters incorporating compressive sensing. Paying attention to the structure of the paper is also important. The authors introduce the topic of compressive sensing and smart grid very briefly and assumes the audience already knows about the importance of the smart grid network. At this point in the paper, only 2 paragraphs in, the authors have already moved on to discussing the details of solving previous issues with smart meters using compressive sensing. They havent discussed what the smart grid is or how it is important in the future. Someone who is not part of the discourse community enveloping engineering and technology may not be familiar with the smart grid at all and would be very confused about the purpose of smart meters and compressive sensing. This is still okay considering the paper is only available for paid subscribers to certain research databases, people who are within this discourse community. Figure 2 from the article shows a possible circuit for the massive amounts of data a smart meter will be managing1(Fig. 2). The circuit is capable of acquiring instantaneous voltage, instantaneous current, phase, frequency and power calculations 1(p. 183). The bottom half of the circuit labeled with 15 and 16 is used to process the voltage as well as the current. The top half of the circuit labeled 9 and 10 is used to process the signals and data coming in.

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Circuit diagram for voltage process and data aquisition

Circuit diagrams are an essential part to any Electrical Engineering related paper. Circuit diagrams breakdown the function of a device to a more technical perspective. The authors of the paper have talked about the feasibility and structure of the smart meter, and have now started back up this talk with a circuit proving their points. This is an interesting point in the paper because at 4 pages in, the paper could be concluded. However, the rest of the paper is spent proving to the reader that everything stated in the first 4 pages has evidence backing it. After a brief introduction to the field, and an overview of resolved issues with compressive sensing, the paper divulges further into the basics of compressive sensing and how it will relate to the smart meter. The authors understand the new idea of compressive sensing is not something that everyone reading the paper may be familiar with. This paper is published under a general engineering discourse community where the only people familiar with the specifics of compressive sensing would be the ones with interests in signals and systems. Compressive sensing is sampling signals at a reduced rate with possible error that will be fixed after reconstruction1(pg180). Mathematically, the paper talks about using 4 different

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transforms of an example signal root mean square of current and how it shows that the majority of the signal transform has a value of zero. Thus, there is only a small amount of relevant data
1(Figs. 3,4)

Generic example signal input The following steps from the article are an example of what a smart meter would do when obtaining data from a signal 1(p. 186). I thought this was a very important moment in the paper because it is very simplistic and it walks the reader through every aspect of the signal transform process for compressive sensing. Noting the source of this paper is China, it is very important for the authors to express the most important part of their paper in the most simplistic

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way so that translations across different countries are easy. It is evident that this worked since I personally understood the concepts and I am not a signals and systems guru. Step 1: Obtain the original data x from the smart meter Step 2: Perform the four different algorithms to signal x, to get the sparse signal and observe the sparsity of the data. Step 3: Use a random measurement matrix to compress the original signal x and get the compressed data y. Step 4: Recover the sparse from y using OMP recovery algorithms. Step 5: Get the recovered signal X using the inverse transform Step 6: Compare the signal to noise ratio of the original signal x and recovered x 1(pg186). These steps have already been covered in the paper and this is another summary of points. It is clear which ideas in the paper are important because it is repeated over and over until there is undeniable evidence and proof of work. The following figure 4 has been already discussed in step 2 as observing the sparsity in the data. The authors decided to go one step further by adding a graphical example of sparse data in a signal to clear up any confusion. Sparse data is a term that is assumed to be known by the audience. Like knowledge of the smart grid, this is another example of knowledge within the discourse community.

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4 Transforms of the Generic Signal that shows Sparsity

The smart grid network is evidently the future of how national facilities and homes will operate. With new technology such as smart meters using compressive sensing, the feasibility of futuristic smart grid networking ideas have become not only possible, but probable. Other similar projects, such as the Internet of Things, ad to the validity of the Smart Grid and show a network of interwoven projects meticulously planned to be destined as a future part of the world. As a young Electrical Engineer, it is important that I am part of this technological discourse

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community by keeping up with technical papers like the one written by Wei Song, Baoju Zhang and Xiaorong Wu. Paying attention to their specific paper, it is clear that themes of extreme thoroughness on a small number of topics and vagueness on the rest is important for these technical writings. The authors assume basic knowledge of the smart grid and mathematics but divulge into extreme detail with compressive sensing. It makes sense that these types of papers are structured this way because too much detail on background information would detract from the main points. Another interesting point was the simple structure used in important portions of the paper. Because the paper was intended to be published globally, the authors used simple step by step methods to summarize. The future of my Profession is vitally important to me, so paying attention to these globally published documents is very crucial. I need to understand that the profession I intend to succeed in, has futuristic applications and a dedicated spot in the future working world.

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WORKS CITED 1.Song W, Zhang B, Wu X. 2013. Compressive Sensing or Smart Grid Wireless Network . Ad Hoc and Sensor Wireless Networks [Internet]. [cited 2014 Jan 12] Vol 20. Available from: http://web.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jr nl=15519899&AN=91813578&h=%2fsaOrBW8C%2b%2fs8A1Ayv0NegwpddDBHerQ2CMUs tzgBf77tlQLRgSwNp1AEYF5REh2D6pCIgxvswzsO61jD7tMlQ%3d%3d&crl=c