Analysis of Packet Transmission Delay in the DC Power-Line Fault Management System using IEEE 802.15.4

IEEE 802.15.4 has been emerging as the popular choice for various monitoring and control applications. In this paper, a fault management system for DC power-lines has been designed using IEEE 802.15.4, in order to monitor DC power-lines in real time, and to rapidly detect faults and shut off the line where such faults occur. Numbers were allocated for each node and unslotted CSMA-CA method of IEEE 802.15.4 was used, the performance of which was analyzed by a simulation. For such purpose, a total of 60 bits of the control data consisting of 16 bits of the current, 16 bits of the amplitude, 28 bits of the terminal state data were sent out, and the packet transfer rate and the transmission delay time of the fault management system for DC power-lines were measured and analyzed. When the traffic load was 330 packets per second or lower, the average delay time was shown to be shorter than 0.02 seconds, and when the traffic load was 260 packets per second or lower, the packet transfer rate was shown to be 99.99% or higher. Therefore, it was confirmed that the stringent condition of US Department of Energy (DOE) could be satisfied if the traffic load was 260 packets per second or lower, The results of this study can be utilized as basic data for the establishment of the fault management system for DC power-lines using IEEE 802.15.4.