ANALYZING A COMMUNICATION PERFORMANCE OF AN IED

• US 20110047264A1
• Filed: 08/16/2010
• Published: 02/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Energy Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: ABB Technology AG (ABB Limited)
• Inventors: HILPERT, Gunnar, Obrist, Michael, Wimmer, Wolfgang
• Granted Patent: US 8,392,557 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00034 the elements or equipment being or involving an electric power substation
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00036 the elements or equipment being or involving switches, relays or circuit breakers circuits for indication of single switches H01H9/167
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/02 Protocol performance
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/00 Enabling technologies; Technologies with a potential or indirect contribution to GHG emissions mitigation
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 10/16 Electric power substations
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 10/18 using switches, relays or circuit breakers, e.g. intelligent electronic devices [IED]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/00 Systems for electrical power generation, transmission, distribution or end-user application management characterised by the use of communication or information technologies, or communication or information technology specific aspects supporting them
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/18 Network protocols supporting networked applications, e.g. including control of end-device applications over a network

Abstract

A communication stack performance of an Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) is analyzed in a communication network of a Substation Automation (SA) system. The IED processes network messages that are transferred with, or belonging to, a specific configurable SA communication service. A plurality of application level scenarios corresponding to a high communication load is executed. Among all network messages captured or intercepted during the scenario, the network messages destined to the IED and sent by the IED in response are identified. A number of the identified messages, a number of specific communication protocol elements or data items related to a service-specific property, and a number of changed protocol elements, which are indicative of an SA event, for which the value of the data item has changed compared to the value of the same data item in a previous message, are determined. An IED-intrinsic processing time of the identified messages is likewise determined, based on which parameter values of a service specific processing time model are calculated.

Claims

1. A method of analyzing a communication performance of an Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) configured to process network messages transferred with a Substation Automation (SA) communication service, comprising, during each of a plurality of SA scenarios:

identifying, by an analyzer, a number n₁ of network messages related to the SA communication service and processed by the IED;

determining, by the analyzer, a number n₂ of specific communication protocol elements within the number n₁ of identified network messages;

determining, by the analyzer, a number n₃ of elements with a changed data value within the number n₂ of specific communication protocol elements;

determining, by the analyzer, a processing time t_p of the identified network messages at the IED; and

calculating, by the analyzer, SA communication service-specific parameters k₁, k₂, k₃ of a processing time model including the specific protocol element, based on the numbers n₁, n₂, n₃ and the processing time t_p for each of the plurality of SA scenarios.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the IED is configured to process network messages related to a plurality of distinct SA communication services, and wherein the method comprises:

identifying, for each of the SA communication services, a total number n₁^j of network messages related to the SA communication service and processed by the IED;

determining, for each of the SA communication services, a number n₂^j of specific communication protocol elements within the respective number n₁^j of identified network messages;

determining, for each of the SA communication services, a number n₃^j of elements with a changed data value within the respective number n₂^j of protocol elements; and

calculating, based on the numbers n_i^j and the total processing time t_p determined for each of the plurality of SA scenarios, parameter values k_i^j of a processing time model for the IED.

3. The method according to claim 1, comprising:

emulating a SA scenario by generating the corresponding network messages by a synthesizer.

4. The method according to claim 1, comprising:

recording the network messages during a real SA event; and

verifying previously calculated processing time model parameter values based thereupon.

5. The method according to claim 1, comprising:

predicting, based on the processing time model, the performance of the IED during SA application level load scenarios that have not been considered for the calculation of the model parameters.

7. The method according to claim 1, comprising:

emulating a SA scenario by simulating a fault at the process level.

8. The method according to claim 2, comprising:

emulating a SA scenario by generating the corresponding network messages by a synthesizer.

9. The method according to claim 2, comprising:

emulating a SA scenario by simulating a fault at the process level.

10. The method according to claim 2, comprising:

recording the network messages during a real SA event; and

verifying previously calculated processing time model parameter values based thereupon.

11. The method according to claim 2, comprising:

predicting, based on the processing time model, the performance of the IED during SA application level load scenarios that have not been considered for the calculation of the model parameters.

12. The method according to claim 2, wherein the plurality of distinct SA communication services are selected from the group consisting of:

MMS, GOOSE and SV.

6. An analyzing tool for analyzing a communication performance of an Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) configured to process network messages transferred with a Substation Automation SA communication service, wherein the analyzing tool comprises a control unit configured to, during each of a plurality of SA scenarios:

identify a number n₁ of network messages related to the SA communication service and processed by the IED;

determine a number n₂ of specific communication protocol elements within the number n₁ of identified network messages;

determine a number n₃ of elements with a changed data value within the number n₂ of specific communication protocol elements;

determine a processing time t_p of the identified network messages at the IED; and

calculate SA communication service-specific parameters k₁, k₂, k₃ of a processing time model including the specific protocol element, based on the numbers n₁, n₂, n₃ and the processing time t_p for each of the plurality of SA scenarios.

13. The analyzing tool according to claim 6, wherein the IED is configured to process network messages related to a plurality of distinct SA communication services, and wherein the control unit is configured to:

identify, for each of the SA communication services, a total number n₁^j of network messages related to the SA communication service and processed by the IED;

determine, for each of the SA communication services, a number n₂^j of specific communication protocol elements within the respective number n₁^j of identified network messages;

determine, for each of the SA communication services, a number n₃^j of elements with a changed data value within the respective number n₂^j of protocol elements; and

calculate, based on the numbers n_i^j and the total processing time t_p determined for each of the plurality of SA scenarios, parameter values k_i^j of a processing time model for the IED.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having a computer program recorded thereon that causes a computer to analyze a communication performance of an Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) configured to process network messages transferred with a Substation Automation (SA) communication service, the program causing the computer to perform operations comprising, during each of a plurality of SA scenarios:

identifying a number n₁ of network messages related to the SA communication service and processed by the IED;

determining a number n₂ of specific communication protocol elements within the number n₁ of identified network messages;

determining a number n₃ of elements with a changed data value within the number n₂ of specific communication protocol elements;

determining a processing time t_p of the identified network messages at the IED; and

calculating SA communication service-specific parameters k₁, k₂, k₃ of a processing time model including the specific protocol element, based on the numbers n₁, n₂, n₃ and the processing time t_p for each of the plurality of SA scenarios.