Investigation and Modeling of Communication Delays

in Wide Area Measurement System

Wenxia Liu, Hong Luo, Shangyuan Li, Dandan Gao
School of Electric and Electronic Engineering
North China Electric Power University
Beijing 102206, China

huadianlh@163.com
Abstract - Wide Area Measurement System has increasingly
become an important part of wide-area interconnected power
system, the reliable transmission of real-time measurement data is
essential. This paper creates WAMS delay model from
perspectives of the stratification of system functionality and
communication structure. It also analyses influences to WAMS
communication delay caused by different protection ways in the
cases of communication link failures. The conclusions of numeral
examples give some reference suggestions about the setting of PDC
waiting time. The model and calculation method presented in this
paper provides practicability and favorable support for WAMS
design.
Index Terms wide area measurement system; functional
structure; communication delay

I. INTRODUCTION

long with the rapid development of large regional power

grids and the concept of the proposed smart grid, the grid
dynamic process will become more complex, and power
systems will be faced with more severe challenges. Wide Area
Measurement System (WAMS) based on Phasor Measurement
Unit (PMU) can carry out real-time monitoring of grid transient,
capture and respond to power system state changes rapidly in
real time. Thus it has been becoming an important guarantee
for power network safety.
As an important part of wide-area power network, the
function of real-time reliable data communication in WAMS is
most important, and the performance of network
communications has an important meaning. References [1]-[3]
study the formation of communication networks for WAMS,
and [4]-[6] discuss WAMS delay issues from three aspects of
theoretical, testing and software simulation. But all lack of
generality and practical characteristics.
On the basis of the researches above, this paper focuses on
WAMS delay characteristic, establishes WAMS delay model,
and then proposes the method of evaluating WAMS
communication delay considering different communication link
protection ways.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
discusses the hierarchical structure of WAMS including system
functions and communication architecture. Section 3 presents
the model of analyzing WAMS communication network delay
in the case of the normal communication network. Section 4
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No.50877026)
Wenxia Liu received her PhD in Power System Automation from NCEPU in
2009. She is an associate professor, and her research interests are power
system communication and intelligent power network planning,
(e-mail:liuwenxia001@163.com)

investigates the evaluating methods of WAMS communication

network delay taking into account the different protection
modes in the case of the failed communication link. A
numerical example is provided in Section 5, followed by
conclusions in Section 6.
II. THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE of WAMS
WAMS based on PMUs conducts four functions of data
collection, data concentration, data transfer and data analysis
and process to realize the whole power system real-time
monitoring of dynamic information, and the corresponding and
most important component parts are GPS-based Phasor
Measurement Unit (PMU), Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC),
high-speed data communication network and the Monitor
Center. According to functional properties, the whole WAMS
can be divided into three levels, shown in Fig.1.

Fig.1 WAMS functional hierarchy diagram

The first layer is the data acquisition layer, the interfaces

between WAMS and power sub-station or bus system, the
second layer is the data concentration layer, in which PDCs
collect subordinate PMUs measurement data and perform time
synchronization, error checking and other operations. The third
layer is the data processing layer, the application layer of
WAMS, CC server analyzes and processes PMU measurement
data to adjust and control the state of power system.
Reference [2] proposed the two-layer structure of
communication networks for WAMS. The backbone network
based on SONET/SDH is between the 1st and 2nd layer.
Regional network including a PDC and a number of PMUs are
between the 2nd and 3rd layer, whose topologies can be
different, such as WDM mesh networks, or SDH ring networks.
III. MODELING OF WAMS DELAY
Running parameters of the power system go through a
series of links from PMUs sampling to the WAMS monitoring
center, these links will inevitably lead to delay. The main
factors causing delay include: sensors, simultaneous sampling,
phase calculation, data encapsulation, data concentration,
communication link transmission and data processing.
A. Modeling for WAMS Delay Analysis
According to WAMS three-tier function structure and

978-1-4577-0547-2/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

two-tier communication architecture, delay analysis model for

PMU real-time data can be divided into five modules, shown in
Fig. 2:

Fig. 2 WAMS delay analysis model

This paper studies the transmission delay of PMU data

from sub-station to the Monitor Certer, just as the total delay at
the three modules of regional communication network, PDC
and backbone communication network, referred to as WAMS
communication delay. PDC delay refers to the processing delay
when data concentrate depending on the sorting algorithm.
WAMS regional and backbone communication networks are
similar to the normal IP transmission network.
B. Modeling of WAMS Communication Delay
1): Delay of PDC Model
The most important function of the PDC is to collect or
receive the phasor measurements from connected PMUs at
various locations and to sort them according to the GPS time
stamps.
As the network transmission delay is random, the delay of
PMU packet arriving at PDC is uncertain, and there is the
possibility of packet loss at the same time. Reference [6]
proposes time-out mechanism for PDC synchronous algorithm.
A time out is added to per time stamped buffer. The time-out
would be the amount of time the buffer is actively waiting for
the rest of PMU packets with the same time stamp. The
countdown to the time-out is initiated when the first PMU
packet of a certain time stamp arrives at the PDC. When
time-out is up the PDC will forward the set without waiting for
the rest of PMU packets.
Set t d a time-out, the time for PDC uses to synchronize
PMU data. So the delay of PDC is:
(1)
= td
If the performance of regional communication networks is
good, there is almost no congestion or congestion is very small,
all the PMU data packets arrive at the PDC before the time-out
is up. Set t the time difference between the first PMU packet
and the last PMU packet arriving at PDC, there is the
relationship of t < td . So the delay of PDC is:
(2)
= t
2): IP-based Communication Network Delay
With the development of IP network technology, [1]-[3]
propose that IP technology is suitable for WAMS data
communication and the major networking technology are IP
over SDH, IP over ATM and IP over WDM. In this paper,
WAMS regional communication networks and backbone
communication networks are such IP-based transmission
networks with optical fiber as transmission medium.
Packet delay always generates when data transmits through
nodes and links in IP network [5]. Packet delay includes

serialization delay, propagation delay, and switching delay,

recorded as , , . Set t the packet delay of IP data from the
starting point to the end point, so:
(3)
t = + +
Serialization delay is defined as the time required for
synchronizing a packet under a certain situation of the output
rate. It is in directly proportional to the size of packet and is
inversely proportional to channel bandwidth. It can be
expressed as:
L
(4)
=
R

Where: L is the size of the data to be sent, which may be one or

more data packets; R is channel bandwidth, the basic line rate.
Propagation delay is the time required for data travels
from the sender to the receiver, which is related to transmission
media but not the bandwidth, and is in directly proportional to
the distance between the transceiver. The propagation delay of
the cable may be estimated according to the transmission rate
of v = 5 s / km . Set S the cable length between the sending and
the receiving. So the propagation delay in IP-based optical
communication network is:
(5)
= vS
Switching delay is the time difference between the points
the packet is received and then transmitted by the same node
device, which is related to the network congestion status. Set
N the number of nodes packet data travel through in the
IP-based network, i the switching delay for the ith node, the
switching delay for the data travels from the sending node to
the receiving one is:
N
(6)
=

i =1

When the network performance is good enough, there is no

congestion; the switching delay can be negligible. In this
situation the communication delay of data packet in the IP
network is:
(7)
t = +
The same method of calculation of packet delay can be
applied to regional communication network and backbone
communication network. The only difference lies in the
calculation parameters of serialization delay and propagation
delay, including L, R, v, S. The switching delay of regional
communication varies with the network statue, while the
backbone communication network is generally dedicated
high-speed communication networks, the switching delay of
which can be ignored due to no congestion.
3): Calculation Method of WAMS Communication Delay
In order to facilitate the following description, the
sub-station PMU measurement data is called as PMU packet,
and after arriving at PDC and being processed by PDC
equipment it is known as PDC packet. So PMU packets travel
through regional communication network, PDC packets
through backbone communication network.
Assume that the power system network under a certain
control center is divided into a number of regional networks
according to network structure and geographical feature, set n

the number of regional networks, which will not be great,

usually just several. Number the regional networks from 1 to
n, the corresponding PDCs are: PDC1, PDC2, ..., PDCn.
Allocate different numbers (ranging from a few to dozens) of
PMU devices for different regional networks according to their
system information requirements and PMU configuration
principles. Set mi the number of PMUs in the ith regional
network.
Based on the calculation method of a packet delay
discussed above, the size of the ith PDC packet should be miL,
the sum of the sizes of all the PMU packets in the ith regional
network (L is the size of PMU packet).
Suppose that all the PMU devices in the n size of regional
networks begin to collect the operating phasor in the power
system at the same time, and then encapsulate them as PMU
packets. The PMU packets delay in sub-station is small enough
to be neglected. So we can view that all PMU packets in all
regional networks get into the corresponding regional
communication networks at the same time, denoted as the point
"0". Let t1,t2,...,tn, respectively, the points arriving at the
corresponding PDC devices for the first PMU packets with the
same time stamp of the n size of regional networks(they are
denoted as the 1st, 2nd, ... , nth regional network, respectively).
Let 1 , 2 ,, n the delays of PDC1,PDC2,...,PDCn
respectively; Let tPDC1,tPDC2,...,tPDCn the transmission time for
the n size of PDC packets traveling in the backbone networks
respectively.
Then WAMS communication delay for the measurement
data with a certain time stamp can be calculated as follows:
t = max{(t1 + 1 + t PDC1 ), (t 2 + 2 + t PDC 2 )," , (t n + n + t PDCn )} (8)
This is the general formula for WAMS communication
delay. It has important relationship with the installation
locations and waiting times of PDC equipments. The PDC
installation locations determine ti, tPDCi, while the size of i

number of network nodes; TF is the time of fault detection and

confirmation , about 3 ~ 5ms; TAPS is the time of APS protocol
processing time by the neighbor node of fault downstream,
about 4 ~ 6ms; TB is the time of bridging by the neighbor node
of fault upstream, about 3 ~ 8ms; tk is the transmission time of
K bytes through each node device, about 0.7 ~ 1.0ms; ts is the
transmission time of protection signal through each node
device, about 0.1 ~ 0.4ms.
Suppose that the recovery time of mesh networks in static
protection mechanism is less than 15ms, which in dynamic
recovery mechanism is less than 50ms.
Suppose: when the initial path of a certain data fails, it can
successfully switch to the protection or restoration path, and the
packet delay of the data in the communication recovery process
is taken as the recovery time discussed above.
This is the assessment method for WAMS communication
delay in the case of link fault considering communication fault
protection modes.
V. EXAMPLE OF COMMUNICATION DELAY ANALYSIS

A. WAMS of IEEE 14-bus System and Parameters Design for

WAMS Communication Network
WAMS of IEEE 14-bus system is shown in Fig.3, in which
power grid monitoring system is divided into three regional
networks according to geographic range and voltage level. The
whole communication networks are composed of three regional
communication networks and one backbone communication
network. The topologies and lengths of each communication
link can be seen in reference [3].

should be reasonably settled based on the size of ti, tPDCi to

make the WAMS communication delay meet the delay
requirement and achieve the minimum value.
IV. COMMUNICATION DELAY BASED on PROTECTION MODE
The previous section has discussed the general method of
WAMS communication delay in case of trouble-free network
links. If a certain link in the communication fails, WAMS
communication delay may be affected, and (8) needs to be
amended.
According to the Resilience-Differentiated Quality of
Services (RD-QoS) model and the communication requirement
for WAMS applications, both static protection and dynamic
recovery should be adopted into WAMS communication
networks.
In the 1+1 single-direction path protection, the business
recovery time is generally less than 15ms.
In the dual-directional multiplex section protection,
business recovery time can be calculated by the formula:
(9)
T TF + TAPS + N (tk + ts ) + L 102 + TB
Where: L is the length of ring-structure network; N is the

Fig.3. WAMS of

IEEE 14-bus system

Assuming all the rates of regional communication

networks are 155Mb/s, the rate of backbone communication
network is 622Mb/s.
Suppose the PMU sample size is L=6400bits. The setting
of PDC waiting delay td should be according to the delay
conditions of regional communication networks, to ensure that
the measure data reach the PDC equipment as nearly as
possible within the PDC waiting time. At the same time, the
waiting time shouldn't be too long so as not to exceed the
system real-time requirement. Otherwise, all the measurement
data will be invalid. Taken all the factors into account, the
initial values of the waiting times of PDC1, PDC2, PDC3 can
set be to td1=1.50ms, td2=0.50ms, td3=1.00ms respectively.

B. Assessment and analysis of WAMS communication delay

Assuming there is no congestion in the regional
communication networks and backbone communication
network, analyze WAMS communication delay according to
the following three cases.
1): The General Calculation Method of WAMS
Communication Delay
Assuming that the initial transmission paths for all the data
are failure-free, calculate WAMS communication delay in this
case. The result is shown in Tab. I.
Tab. I WAMS communication delay when normal (ms)
a. DRCN represents the delay through regional communication network;
b. DBCN represents the delay through backbone communication network.
DBCNb
PDC
Total
Data
DRCNa( ti , ti )
(tPDCi)
Delay
Source
(tdi)
A1

t1 =0.04, t1 =1.40

1.50

0.8

2.24

A2

t2 =0.29, t2 =0.40

0.50

1.71

2.40

A3

t3 =0.04, t 3 =0.90

1.00

2.13

3.07

2): WAMS Communication Delay Considering Links

Failure and Protection Modes
Since the probability of multiple failures is small,
assuming that only one link fails at one time .Suppose the
following four types of link fault:
a. RN1 adopts 1 +1 static protection mode, with the failure
of link RN1-4.
b. RN2 adopts dynamic recovery mode, with the failure of
link RN2-11.
c. RN3 adopts dual-directional multiplex section protection
mode, assuming RN3-3 fails, business recovery delay of Node
13 can be calculated by equation (9), and the related parameters
are taken as the mean of their range.
d. Suppose link L2 in backbone communications network
fails.
The results of WAMS communication delay are shown in
Tab. II.
Tab. II WAMS communication delay when failed (ms)
a. DRCN represents the delay through regional communication network;
b. DBCN represents the delay through backbone communication network;
c. WAMS-CD represents WAMS communication delay.
PDC
DBCNb
WAMS-CDc
Failure
DRCNa( ti , ti )
(tdi)
(tPDCi)
(t)
Types
A

t1 =0.04, t1 =15

1.50

0.8

3.07

t2 =0.36, t2 =50

0.50

1.71

3.07

t3 =0.04, t 3 =28.2

1.00

2.13

3.17

t3 =0.04, t 3 =0.90

1.00

15

15.94

3): Results and Analysis

a. In case of failure-free, according to (8), WAMS
communication delay is 3.07ms. In this case, due to the
reasonable setting of PDC waiting time, all the measurement
data reach the control center server successfully.
b. For the former three kinds of failure, due to business

recovery time is longer than the PDC waiting time, the data
through the failed link in the regional communication networks
lost in the period of route switching. WAMS communication
delays remain unchanged when the failures of A and B occur.
WAMS communication delay is 3.17ms when C occurs. If
data loss is within the tolerance in real-time decision-making
system, it would not impact on the system.
c. When the failure D occurs, WAMS communication delay
is 15.94ms, with no data loss, and the total delay is still less
than 20ms, which meet the Class 1 of RD-Qos.
4): Conclusion
It can be make conclusion that PDC waiting time must be
appropriate to set. And PDC waiting time should not be too
large to ensure business recovery adequate time for backbone
communication preventing from data loss. At the same time,
PDC waiting time should not be too small to ensure that the
regional communication networks collect complete data as
much as possible.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Wide Area Measurement System gradually becomes the
important guarantee for the safe and stable operation of power
system, which reliable data transmission is crucial. This paper
presents the study of WAMS delay from the point of view of
function structure and communication architecture, establishes
WAMS delay model, and investigates the calculation method of
WAMS communication delay.
Numeral example shows that, it is necessary to
comprehensively consider
the
delays
of regional
communication networks and backbone communication
network for PDC waiting time setting, so as to ensure the data
of backbone communication network have enough recovery
time. That is extremely important for the whole system. The
model of WAMS communication delay and the method of
calculation and analysis presented in this paper wound
contribute to the design, maintenance and reliable evaluation
for WAMS. The next step in WAMS real-time reliability
research can be carried out by combining the optimal allocation
of PMUs and communication protocols.
VII. REFERENCES
[1]Ju Ping, Dai Fei, Wide Area measurement technology in power system.
Beijing, Machinery Industry Press, 2008.
[2]PENG Jing, LU Ji-ping, Wang Yang, Communication infrastructure design
for WAMS, Power System Protection and Control, 37(12), pp.62-67, 2009.
[3]Yang Wang, Wenyuan Li, and Jiping Lu, Reliability analysis of wide-area
measurement system, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, 25(3),
pp.1483-1491, 2010.
[4] Naduvathuparambil B., Valenti M.C., Feliachi A., Communication delay in
wide area measurement systems, in Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth
Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, pp.118-122, March. 2002.
[5]Hu Zhi-xiang, Xie Xiao-rong, Xiao Jin-yu, Analysis and test on delays in
the wide area measuring system, Automation of Electric Power Systems,
28(15), pp.39-43, 2004.
[6]Moustafa Chenine, Lars Nordstrom, Investigation of communication delays
and data incompleteness in multi-PMU Wide Area Monitoring and Control
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