On the Integration of Smart Grid and IoT
Salvatore Cavalieri
1a
, Giulio Cantali
2
and Andrea Susinna
2
1
University of Catania, Dpt. of Electrical Electronic and Computer Engineering (DIEEI), A. Doria, 6, Catania, Italy
2
Consortium COMETA, S. Sofia 64, Catania, Italy
Keywords: IEC 61850, Smart Grid, Internet of Things, Web Services, REST, MQTT.
Abstract: The paper proposes a novel solution in the field of the integration of Smart Grid and Internet of Things. The
definition of a web platform able to offer to a generic web user a RESTful interface to IEC 61850 Servers is
proposed. The web platform enables the mapping of information maintained by an IEC 61850 server into
MQTT messages.
1 INTRODUCTION
The smart grid (SG) is based on a new vision of the
electric grid, which includes the maximization of the
distribution of energy demand, the minimization of
losses and the integration of renewable energy
sources on a large scale, as pointed out in (Alotaibi,
2020; Mehigan, 2018; Shi, 2020). SG aims to
overcome one of the main limitations of the current
electric grid, related to the lack of integration of novel
information and communication technologies.
Among the novel information and communication
technologies there are those based on the Internet of
Things (IoT), which play a strategic role in the era of
Industry 4.0 as shown by (Xu, 2021; Hassan, 2020,
Bader, 2020; Lu, 2017; Cotrino, 2020). The
eXtensibleMessaging Presence Protocol (XMPP) and
the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) are
some of the most known protocols in this field (IETF,
2004; OASIS, 2014; ISO/IEC, 2016). The
REpresentational State Transfer or REST is an
architectural style defined by Roy Fielding in his PhD
dissertation (Fielding, 2000); a Web Service based on
REST is called RESTful Web Service (Richardson,
2007). RESTful Web Services is a paradigm that can
enhance the IoT application scope by making smart
things part of the Web (Benomar, 2020).
The paper proposes a novel solution in the field of
the integration of SG and IoT. In particular, the
proposed integration involves IEC 61850, which is is
an international standard defining communication
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9077-3688
protocols for intelligent electronic devices at
electrical substations (IEC 61850, 2011; Falk, 2019).
The definition of a web platform able to offer to a
generic web user a RESTful interface to IEC 61850
Servers is proposed. The web platform is based on a
REST architecture and enables the mapping of IEC
61850 information model into MQTT messages. The
platform will be called IEC 61850 Web Platform in
the remainder of the paper.
2 RELATED WORKS
The current literature presents several studies about
enabling IoT in SG, typically referred as IoT-enabled
SG (Reka, 2018; Al-Turjman, 2019; Cavalieri, 2016;
Cavalieri, 2021).
In (Tightiz, 2020) the authors present a review of
the IoT protocols used in the SG aiming to achieve
guidelines in utilizing the proper IoT protocol that can
meet the SG requirements; addressing effective
elements in applying IoT in the SG’s future trends is
another contribution of this paper. In (Shin, 2016)
authors discuss integration of IEC 61850 and IoT. In
(Ustun, 2020) an IEC 61850 and XMPP
communication-based energy management in
microgrids with integrated electric vehicles is
introduced. In the paper (Jun, 2021), the XMPP and
MQTT are applied to an IEC 61850-based grid, and
the most suitable protocol for the micro grid
environment is derived by comparing two protocols.
Cavalieri, S., Cantali, G. and Susinna, A.
On the Integration of Smart Grid and IoT.
DOI: 10.5220/0011035300003179
In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2022) - Volume 1, pages 709-716
ISBN: 978-989-758-569-2; ISSN: 2184-4992
Copyright
c
2022 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
709
Among the main approaches aimed to enable
interworking between REST and SG domains, in
(Urkia, 2018) a mapping between CoAP and IEC
61850-based substation automation systems in a SG
environment is proposed. Based on REST, CoAP is a
specialized web transmission protocol for use with
constrained nodes and constrained networks. Another
solution for the mapping of the IEC 61850 to
RESTful Services is presented in (Pedersen, 2010).
The main feature making the proposal here
present different from the other solutions present in
the literature is the capability of offering several
mechanisms, all enabling SG and IoT integration, in
the same solutions. First of all, a RESTful interface to
IEC 61850 Servers is available, allowing a generic
web user to access the information maintained by the
IEC 61850 server by a REST-based exchange. Then
a mechanism to transmit information maintained by
IEC 61850 Server, through JSON frames included in
MQTT payloads has been defined based on pub/sub
transmission mechanisms. Finally, the solution here
proposed aims to introduce syntactic interoperability;
the IEC 61850 Web Platform allows a user to share
the description of the data types maintained by IEC
61850 Server, into a standard format (JSON).
3 IEC 61850 DATA MODEL
IEC 61850 is the leading standard for substation
automation (IEC 61850, 2011), (Falk, 2019). It is
intended to structure the intelligence of protection,
control, monitoring and automation functions. The
standard fulfils automation architecture requirements
for utility subsystems, enabling communication
among multi-vendor equipment.
IEC 61850 defines an object-oriented modelling
of process data required for the power system
automation. IEC 61850 data model has been
primarily defined for the exchange of information
within substations by the document IEC 61850-7-4
(IEC 61850, 2011). IEC 61850 data model is now
extended for other domains, among which one can
include distributed energy resources (DER)s by IEC
61850-7-420 (IEC 61850, 2011).
Figure 1 shows the main elements of the IEC
61850 data model. The top parent class is the
intelligent electronic device (IED), which is hosted by
physical device, i.e., the controller part of the device.
The IED consists of one or more Logical Devices
(LDs), i.e., virtual representations of devices intended
for supervision, protection or control of automated
systems. LDs are created by combining several
Logical Nodes (LNs) which represent various device
functionality interfaces. Data Objects (DOs) are
representations of the common information of logical
nodes. DOs are typed by Common Data Classes
(CDC) from IEC 61850-7-3 or IEC 61850-7-2 (IEC
61850, 2011). Each CDC describes the type and
structure of the data object within the LN. Figure 2
gives the details of hierarchical structure of the Data
Object Type.
Figure 1: IEC 61850 Data Model.
A Data Object belongs to the Data Object Type; it
may contain elements of the Data Attribute type
and/or Structured Data Object type (i.e., Data
Attributes and Structured Data Object, respectively).
Like Data Object, Structured Data Objects are also
defined by Data Object Types, as shown by Figure 2.
Figure 2: Data Type Template Hierarchy.
A Data Attribute is defined by the Data Attribute
Type. It may be a Structured Attribute, or may be of
a customized Enumeration type, or of a Basic
Attribute type. In the simplest case, a Basic Attribute
may be of basic type like Integer, Floating Point or
Boolean. Like Data Attributes, Structured Attribute
belongs to Data Attribute type, as shown by Figure 2.
The IEC 61850 standard provides a data exchange
mechanism using an XML-based file format called
Substation Configuration Language (SCL). SCL
allows the representation of an IEC 61850 system
configuration of electrical devices, including
IED
Logical Device (LD)
Logical Node (LN)
Data Object (DO)
Logical Node Type
Data Objects
Data Object Type
Structured Data Object
Data Attribute Type
Data Attributes
Structured Attribute
Basic Attribute Type
Enumeration
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representation of data and communication services, as
described in (IEC 61850, 2011). Its main purpose is
to allow an interoperable exchange of communication
system configuration data between an IED
configuration tool and a system configuration tool
from different manufacturers. The SCL file is divided
into sections, each of which provides different
information. Header section includes general topics
and details about SCL and file version.
Communication section contains communication
details. Substation section describes electrical
topology for substation or any other electrical
process. IED section describes devices capacities,
functions and data it manages. DataTypeTemplates
section describes functional data model by defining
LNs, Data Objects and Data Attributes.
IED Capability Description (ICD) file is a specific
type of Substation Configuration Language (SCL)
file, containing a generic description of the whole
capability range of a given device, including the
functions and objects it can support. The ICD file is
usually supplied by the developer/manufacturer.
IEC 61850 standardizes the set of abstract
communication services allowing for compatible
exchange of information among components of a
Power Utility Automation System. IEC 61850 offers
several types of communication models, among
which there is the Client/Server type communication
services model. An IEC 61850 Server may be used to
maintain and make available to IEC 61850 Clients, its
content is in term of data structured according to the
IEC 61850 data model shown in Figures 1 and 2. An
ICD file is always available in the IEC 61850 Server
to describe its full content.
4 IEC 61850 WEB PLATFORM
The IEC 61850 Web Platform here proposed, is based
on the adoption of a REST architectural style and is
shown by Figure 3. As it can be seen, it offers to a
Web User the access to one or more IEC 61850
Servers.
The term Web User is used in this paper to refer
to a generic application running on a generic device
which consumes the services offered by the IEC
61850 Web Platform. It is constrained neither to be
IEC 61850 compliant nor to implement the IEC
61850 communication stack. The only constraints are
the adoption of RESTful-based communication and
the MQTT-based exchange of information.
The RESTful Web Service Interface shown by
Figure 3, accepts requests submitted by an
authenticated Web User.
The Middleware module inside the IEC 61850
Web Platform, performs all the operations needed to
fulfil each request coming from a Web User. These
requests may require data exchange with the available
IEC 61850 Servers; for this reason, the Middleware
includes an IEC 61850 Client used for the access to
the IEC 61850 Servers. Communication between IEC
61850 Client and IEC 61850 Servers occurs
according to the standard IEC 61850 communication
protocol and services (i.e., using the IEC 61850
communication stack). The Middleware includes a
particular module named MQTT Publisher, which is
in charge to publish information taken from IEC
61850 Server, through a MQTT Broker, using MQTT
protocol.
Figure 3: IEC 61850 Web Platform.
Communication between Web User and the IEC
61850 Web Platform may be synchronous (based on
RESTful web services) and asynchronous (based on
MQTT Publish/Subscribe Pattern), as shown by
Figure 3.
Web User uses synchronous communication to
interact with the Web Service Interface to request one
of the services offered by the IEC 61850 Web
Platform. POST requests are realized using JSON
format. For each Web User’s request through the
RESTful Web Service Interface, the IEC 61850 Web
Platform will send a relevant response. Due to the
adoption of REST, communication between Web
User and IEC 61850 Web Platform is stateless. Each
Web User needing to use the IEC 61850 Web
Platform through the Synchronous communication,
must be previously registered (by user credentials in
terms of username and password) and authenticated
(through the use of signed token which is returned to
the Web User).
IEC 61850 Web Platform
RESTful Web Service
Interface
IEC
61850
Client
MQTT
Publisher
Asynchronous
communication
Web User
IEC 61850
Server
Middleware
Broker
IEC 61850
Server
On the Integration of Smart Grid and IoT
711
Asynchronous communication is realized through
the use of MQTT Brokers to allow the Web User to
receive data produced by the platform; data is mainly
originated by the IEC 61850 Servers. Web User will
register to a particular topic in order to receive the
information needed from the relevant MQTT Broker.
The Broker may be chosen by the Web User, or he
can use a given predefined Broker.
The following subsections will give more details
about both the synchronous and asynchronous data
exchange.
4.1 User Registration and
Authentication
Use of the IEC 61850 Web Platform from the Web
User may occur only after his registration. If the user
is not yet registered in the system, he must issue a
suitable POST Request to a specific Web Service
Interface, in JSON format, the body of which must
contain the credentials (username and password) with
which the user intends to register. If the registration
procedure succeeds, Web User will receive a POST
response, again in JSON, indicating that the operation
was completed successfully. If registration procedure
fails (e.g., if the user is already present in the system),
the platform response will specify the failure reason.
Before the registered Web User may proceed to
request synchronous services to the platform, he must
authenticate himself to the platform by entering his
credentials. The user will send a POST request to
another specific Web Service Interface relevant to the
authentication service, specifying his personal
credentials used during the registration. If the
authentication request succeeds, the Web user will
receive a response containing a signed token to be
used in each of the next web service synchronous
requests issued to the IEC 61850 Web Platform.
4.2 Accessing an IEC 61850 Server
The main aim of the Web Platform is to allow the
access to IEC 61850 servers by the web. According
to this aim, the Web User must pass to the platform
the details about the IEC 61850 Server he desires to
access. A POST request must be issued at a particular
Web Service Interface containing these details; in
particular, three parameters are required to be
specified.
The first parameter represents the IP address of
the remote machine hosting the IEC 61850 Server;
the other parameter is the port on which the server is
listening. Finally, it is requested that the Web User
specifies the path in the IEC 61850 Server of the ICD
file describing the content of the IEC 61850 data
model. As said in Section 2, the ICD file contains the
SCL description of the data model maintained by the
IEC 61850 Server.
As consequence of this request, the middleware
connects to the server specified in the POST request
and retrieves the SCL file on the basis of the full path
provided for by the web user. Once received, this file
is locally stored; it will be used by the Middleware as
explained in the following subsections. The IEC
61850 Web Platform will respond with a POST
Response, pointing out the success of his previous
request.
A disconnection procedure has been foreseen
through a specific POST request issued by the Web
User, when the data exchange activities with a
specific IEC 61850 Server end. All the local resources
allocated to maintain the SCL descriptions of the IEC
61850 Server accessed by the Web User are released,
if not used by other users.
4.3 Publication of Data Types
Data type is an attribute associated with a piece of
data that tells a computer system how to interpret its
value. Two or more systems exchanging data must be
capable of interpreting data; to achieve this, syntactic
interoperability must be established, at least. This
requires that the two systems must share a common
data format and data structures. Considering the
proposal here presented, Web User must be able to
interpret each information exchanged with the IEC
61850 Server through the IEC 61850 Web Platform;
this can be achieved only on the basis of the
knowledge of the data types involved in the
information exchange; this means that the data type
descriptions of the data maintained in the IEC 61850
Server must be shared with the Web User.
For this reason, it has been defined a particular
service allowing a Web User to retrieve the
description of the entire set (or a subset) of data types
maintained in each IEC 61850 Server and relevant to
the information the Web User needs to exchange with
the IEC 61850 Server. Again, a suitable POST
Request can be issued to a specific Web Service
Interface, through which the Web User specifies the
specific data type or the set of data types he wishes to
know. It has been assumed that the Web User will
receive the description of the requested data types
though a JSON-based payload inside MQTT frames,
published by a Broker after subscription to a specific
topic. In the POST request, the Web User will specify
the data types requested and the Broker to be used for
the publication of the topics. The Web User will
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receive a response from the platform confirming the
publication of the requested data type on the
requested broker on a particular topic specified in the
response. After the subscription to this topic, the Web
user may retrieve the requested data types in JSON
format.
The specification of the requested data types
occurs through the use of a particular syntax defined
in this proposal. It is important to recall that each
information in the IEC 61850 server is maintained
according to the hierarchical data tree structure shown
by Figures 1 and 2; in particular, Figure 2 gives the
details about the data type structure of Data Object.
It has been assumed that the syntax used to
identify each IEC 61850 data type from the Web User
point of view, reflects that of the data model of the
IEC 61850 standard. It is defined as a sequence of
names separated by “/”. The data type identifier must
first foresee the name of the IED maintained by the
IEC 61850 Server. According to the IEC 61850-7-1
(IEC 61850, 2011), the Logical Devices inside the
IED are identified by the attribute instance name (i.e.
inst); for this reason, the value of this attribute is used
in the data type identifier. Again, the standard IEC
61850-7-1 identifies each Logical Node by a
particular concatenation of three attributes: Logical
Node Prefix (i.e. prefix), Logical Node Class (i.e.
lnClass), Logical Node Instance (i.e. inst); for this
reason, it is assumed that the name of LN inside the
structure of the data type identifier is made up by the
same concatenation of these attributes. As Data
Objects (inside a LN), Data Attributes, Structured
Data Objects (inside DO), Enumeration and Basic
Data Attributes (for the Data Attribute Type) are
univocally identified by the name attribute, this last is
used in the data type identifier for the relevant
elements.
For example, let us assume that IEC 61850 data
model features an IED whose attribute name has the
value “BCU1M19”; moreover, let us assume that the
IED contains a Logical Device whose attribute
instance name (inst) is “C1”. Among the Logical
Nodes belonging to this Logical Device, let us assume
that the LN features the value “LBAY” for the prefix
attribute, the value “1” for the instance number (inst)
attribute, and the value “MMXU” for the attribute
lnClass. The concatenation of this values, according
to the IEC 61850 standard, gives the name
“LBAYMMXU1”, which is used in the data type
identifier. Among the Data Objects inside this LN, let
us assume the presence of the Data Object with the
name attribute set to “A”, containing Data Attributes
and Structured Data Objects. Among the Structured
Data Objects that with name attribute equal to “phsB”
exists. It is made up by a set of Data Attributes,
among which there is that featuring a name attribute
set to “cVal”. Finally, it has been assumed that this
Data Attributes contains the Data Attribute of struct
type with attribute name equal to “mag”. This Data
Attribute contains only a Basic Data Attribute
(FLOAT 32) with the name attribute “f”. According
to the scenario just described, the data type identifier
of the BDA “f”, will be: “BCU1M19/C1/
LBAYMMXU1/A/phsB/cVal/mag/f”.
According to the example just done, the Web User
submits a POST request including this data type
identifier and the details about the Broker to be used
for the publication, in order to have the publication of
the data type description of the BDA “f” contained in
the Structured Attribute “mag”. The IEC 61850 Web
Platform will send a POST response confirming the
success of the previous request and giving back a
topic identifier on the specified Broker. On the
reception of this confirmation, the Web User will
subscribe to this topic on the specified Broker.
Subscription will allow the Web User to receive an
MQTT frame containing the requested data type in
JSON format. Figure 4 shows a realistic example of
the content of this topic (in JSON).
{
"DAType": {
"id": "AnalogueValue_Float",
"BDA": {
"bType": "FLOAT32",
"name": "f"
}
}
}
Figure 4: Example of JSON frame containing data type
description.
The example just done requires that the Web User
has a complete knowledge of the content of the IEC
61850 server in terms of the current hierarchical data
model tree present in the server. Some times, this can
not be achieved, and the Web User may have the need
to explore the current IEC 61850 data model
maintained by a specific server to look for a specific
data type. For this reason, another solution has been
defined in this work in order to allow the Web User
to acquire information about the entire IEC 61850
data model structure present in the IEC 61850 server.
According to the proposed solution, the Web User
may discover the full or partial structure of the data
model, finding one or more data types of his interest.
The Web user will perform several POST requests in
order to explore the entire data model tree, until the
requested data types are found. In order to achieve
this, a particular syntax has been defined to allows the
On the Integration of Smart Grid and IoT
713
Web User to make the requests to be passed to the
platform. This syntax is again based on the rules
described before for the definition of the data type
identifier according to the IEC 61850 data model tree;
moreover, the syntax contains particular keywords
here defined and aimed to make easier the exploration
of the data model.
The following keywords have been defined in
order the Web User may explore the IEC 61850 data
model tree:
getAllIEDs. If the Web User specifies this
keyword in his request, it will receive a topic
named “IEDs”, whose subscription to the
proper Broker, allows to achieve JSON
description of the IEDs maintained by the IEC
61850 Server. Considering the example seen
before, the JSON frame shown by Figure 5,
will be received through the subscription to this
topic.
{
"IED": {
"configVersion": 1,
"name": "BCU1M19",
"type": "BCU_APPLIANCE",
"manufacturer": "ABC"
}
}
Figure 5: Example of JSON frame containing data type
description of IED maintained by the IEC 61850 Server.
getAllLogicalDevices. This keyword allows
the Web User to make a request for the
publication of the data structure relevant to the
entire set of LDs contained in a specific IED.
Considering the example seen before, and
considering in particular the content of Figure
5, the Web User may specify the following
string in the request made to the platform
“BCU1M19/getAllLogicalDevices”. The topic
he will receive from the Platform will be
“BCU1M19/LDevices”; through the
subscription to this topic, the JSON frame
shown by Figure 6 will be received.
{
"IED": {
"name": "BCU1M19",
"LDevice": {
"inst": "C1"
}
}
}
Figure 6: Example of JSON frame containing data type
description of LD belonging to the IED “BCU1M19”.
getAllLogicalNodes. It allows the Web User to
make a request for the publication of topic
relevant to the entire set of LNs contained in a
LD. Considering the example seen before, and
considering in particular the content of Figure
6, the Web User may realize the following
request “BCU1M19/C1/getAllLogicalNodes”.
The topic he will receive from the Platform will
be “BCU1M19/C1/LNodes”; through the
subscription to this topic, the Web User will
receive the details about the LNs by a JSON
frame, among which the LN “LBAYMMXU1”
described before.
getAllDataObjects. It allows the Web User to
make a request for the publication of topics
relevant to the entire set of Data Objects
contained in a Logical Node. Considering the
example seen before, the Web user may
perform a request specifying the string
“BCU1M19/C1/LBAYMMXU1/getAllDataO
bjects”. The topic he will receive from the
Platform will be “BCU1M19/C1/LBAYMMX
U1/DObjects”; through the subscription to this
topic, the Web User will receive the details
about the DOs contained in the LN.
getAllDA_SDO. It is used in the request aimed
to acquire information about the entire set of
Data Attribute and Structured Data Objects
inside a Data Object.
Several operators have been defined in order to
perform more powerful queries:
ALL. The Web User may use this operator to
achieve more information with only one
request. For example, if the Web User specifies
the string “ied1/ALL/getAllLogicalNodes”, he
can receive information about all the logical
nodes belonging to whatever logical device
contained in a specific IED (“ied1”).
&. Through this operator, the Web User may
request the publication of several elements. For
example, he may specify the string
“ied1/Inverter/getAllLogicalNodes &
ied1/Battery/getAllLogicalNodes” in the
POST request; in this way, the Web User
requires knowledge of the structure of the
logical nodes contained in the Inverter and
Battery logical devices of the IED “ied1”.
except. The Web user may exclude information
of particular IEC 61850 elements in his request.
For example, if the Web User specifies the
request “ied1/ALL/getAllLogicalNodes except
ied1/Battery”, it gets the names of all logical
nodes of all logical devices contained in ied1,
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with the exception of logical nodes contained
in Battery.
Combinations of the previous operators may be
realized. For example, it could use the & operator to
exclude multiple elements from a multiple search,
such as requesting all the logical nodes of all the
logical devices of the ied1 device with the exception
of the logical nodes contained in Battery and Inverter:
“ied1/ALL/getAllLogicalNodes except ied1/Battery
& ied1/Inverter”.
In the previous subsection, it has been told that for
each IEC 61850 Server connected, the IEC 61850
Web Platform locally maintains an image of the ICD
file retrieved from the server; the ICD file contains
the SCL description of the data model maintained by
the IEC 61850 Server. For each request received by
the Web User, the Web Service Platform will explore
this local image in order to find the information
related to the IEC 61850 data model tree, as requested
by the user. A JSON frame is built containing the
description of the data types requested by the user, as
shown by Figures 4, 5 and 6. These frames will be
published through MQTT message by the requested
broker, on a particular topic which is passed to the
Web User through the POST Response. Subscription
to this topic by the Web User, allows him the receipt
of the requested data type description.
4.4 Subscription Request
Through the Subscription request service, the Web
User requests the IEC 61850 Web Platform to publish
the values of the variables of interest. This request is
made only after the Web User has acquired
knowledge about the information related to the data
types of these variables. To use the service, the user
sends a POST request to the IEC 61850 Web Platform
containing two fields: variable identifier and interval.
Variable identifier field contains the information
about the variable to be accessed. It is given
according to the same formalism seen for the
publication of data types. For example, considering
the example pointed out in the previous subsection,
the variable identifier “BCU1M19/C1/LBAYMMX
U1/A/phsB/cVal/mag/f”, refers to the variable “f”
contained in the Structured Attribute “mag”. The
operator & may be used in order to specify a list of
variables.
The interval field is used by the Web User to
specify the desired sampling interval in milliseconds
of the specified variables; the sampling interval
corresponds to the interval at which the variables are
sampled and the relevant values are sent to the Broker
for the publication.
For each POST request made by the Web User,
the Web Server Platform will send a POST response
containing the name of the topic to which the Web
User may be subscribe; once the subscription has
been achieved, Web User will receive from the broker
the values updated according to the frequency
specified.
4.5 Updating Request
This service is used by the Web User to update the
values of variables maintained by the IEC 61850
servers through a remote POST REST request.
The Web user must specify the variable identifier
to be modified and the new value to be updated. The
variable identifier must have the same syntax already
exposed in the previous subsections.
5 FINAL REMARKS
The paper has presented a novel solution in the field
of the integration of SG and IoT. Integration involves
IEC 61850, Web Services and MQTT. The proposal
features a RESTful web platform able to offer to a
generic user a web service interface to IEC 61850
Servers. The web platform enables the mapping of
information maintained by IEC 61850 server into
MQTT messages. A very limited knowledge is
requested by the Web User in order to be able to
access the services offered by the platform. In
particular, a very simple syntax to explore the IEC
61850 data model is requested without any
knowledge about the IEC 61850 specifications and
any need to use IEC 61850 communication stacks.
The only technologies requested are REST and
MQTT, which are considered the basic ones in the
IoT.
The proposed platform has been implemented
using Java language. The main implementation
choices are the following ones. For the web User
authentication, the standard JSON Web Token was
used (RFC, 2015). The IEC 61860 Client inside the
Middleware has been implemented using the open
source library iec61850bean (IEC61850bean, 2021).
The MQTT Broker has been realized by Mosquitto
1.6.12 (Mosquitto, 2021). The implementation of the
MQTT Publisher inside the Middleware was realized
using Eclipse Paho Java Client (Paho, 2021).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research results presented in this paper have been
achieved inside the PASCAL project (CUP
G79J18000690007) funded by Sicilian region (Italy),
within the European Regional Development (P.O.
FESR 2014 -2020 line 1.1.5).
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