Sensing and monitoring electrical signals and power device parameters within the smart grid network infrastructure plays a fundamental role in assessing the smart devices' proper functioning. Nevertheless, a key challenge for academic teaching and researching purposes is the elevated cost of real electronic devices, such as current and potential transformers, or even intelligent electronic devices. Therefore, traffic emulators are a valuable solution for the evaluation of new smart grid communication proposals. In this work, we propose TITAN, a tool to support the evaluation of automation systems' communication networks. TITAN enables the emulation of IEC 61850 communication, ranging from data sensing to data acquisition, thus supporting extensive research and development on this fundamental smart grid domain. This tool can interact and communicate with real elements, such as intelligent electronic devices. It enables the emulation of voltage and current data sensing communication, as well as the implementation of different data acquisition schemes by an emulated supervisory system. Our main contributions are: (i) TITAN, a tool with a distributed microservices architecture to execute communication traffic generation tasks; (ii) a user-friendly interface to integrate and manage all components; and (iii) a proof of concept testbed using TITAN and real teleprotection devices. Real case studies using TITAN reveal its feasibility in supporting low-cost testbeds for research, teaching, and testing purposes in sensing and acquisition for automation systems.

This paper introduces a methodology for modelling a digital admittance-type distance relay using PSCAD/EMTDC. The proposed distance relay was tested in a simulation of the Brazilian power grid with predetermined fault scenarios. The goal of this paper is to make a detailed evaluation of the mho distance relay. The main aspects include the correct operation of the distance relay, fault resistance effects on the mho characteristics, and the fault detection time of this relay. A new approach to analyse the fault detection time is presented, considering several simulated fault scenarios. The results demonstrate that the fault resistance influences the fault detection time and severely affects the distance relay’s general performance. The fault detection time is not constant. It varies within a time interval, considering different fault types, fault locations, and fault resistances. The confidence interval calculation provides a detailed range of the fault detection time, considering its upper and lower limits.

Este trabalho compara os diferentes meios de comunicação utilizados para teleproteção e os principais requisitos de comunicação necessários para a sua implementação com base no estado da arte. Após o levantamento de requisitos foi identificada a necessidade de avaliação da latência para envio de mensagens de teleproteção mesmo com tráfego de serviços concorrentes, como vídeo, voz, supervisão e controle. O cenário de teleproteção tradicional também foi comparado com o cenário via rede de comunicação e os tempos alcançados via rede foram superiores a cenário com fio piloto conforme avaliação em laboratório. Verificou-se o impacto gradativo do aumento de tráfego concorrente na latência da teleproteção.