# Sensor Technologies for Transmission and Distribution Systems: A Review of the Latest Developments
## 4 Outlook
### Advances in Utility Level and Consumer Level Grids with Modern Day Sensor Technology  
Modern-day sensor technology has certain technical ramifications in the utility level and consumer level grid connections. From the review, it can be inferred that at the utility grid level, substantial advancements have been realized in the past decade to upgrade the sensors used on transmission and distribution systems. Firstly, the deployment of sensors has been fast paced with an extensive reach, covering almost the entire utility grid. Sensors have developed from just directly measuring the traditional grid parameters such as values of voltages and currents to sensing more complex grid features such as the electromagnetic signatures, material properties, acoustics, and frequency of operations to estimate more accurate values of the sensed parameters. Second, modern-day sensor technology has predictive controls enabling the integration of automated and intelligent models and instrumentation. Sensor technology has matured from the deployment of single sensing devices on the power grid components to its incorporation with SCADAs, PMUs,  
Figure 5: Block diagram of a smart sensor.  
MUs, etc. constituting the wide area monitoring systems for complete, synchronized, and digital monitoring of multiple components of the power grid. The incorporation of advanced communication protocols such as wired fiber optics communications and wireless communications with Wi-Fi, LoRa, ZigBee, NB-IOT, etc., have helped to improve the efficiency and speed of data transmission... Finally, the incorporation of machine learning and IoT into the maturing sensor technology is another attractive feature that not only improves the sensing process but also efficiently integrates the sensed raw grid parameter data for synchronized data collection and transmission with artificial intelligence and cognitive data analysis at the edge, thereby reducing outage management time and boosting the holistic asset utilization of the power grid [145; 146].  
However, at the consumer level, transformation of the traditional sensors and the electric meters with advanced sensor technology is still latent but will be coming in a few years. The pace of deployment of modern-day sensors has been slow and their reach is very limited to a particular area for a particular functioning. For smart meters and meter data management systems, MDMS installed at certain consumer-side loads can provide data on energy usage, power quality and economic metrics with remote communication facilities to the grid operator. There is still a requirement for pervasive and smart sensing techniques that will enable customized scheduling, reduced billing, demand response, and the support of new controlling strategies to accommodate the needs of smart homes and smart buildings [23]. This is also required for electrical market analysis to facilitate planning, load forecasting, and structuring of engineering designs and standards [147]. Furthermore, there is a requirement for enhancing customer service and customer experience by competing energy service companies. Various customer centric applications such as reports on charging-discharging time and time-of-use rates [147], especially for bigger loads like electric vehicles, can be provided through appropriate embedded sensors. Smart sensors and advanced metering instruments (AMI) can also help increase consumers' participation in the energy market and energy management processes. The modern-day sensor technology from the point of view of the utility level grid and consumer level grid has been depicted in Figure 6.