# Communication Performance Assessment for Advanced Metering Infrastructure
## 5 Conclusions  
If the communication performance and stability is poor, all AMI functionalities cannot be effectively realized. Therefore, communication performance and stability between widely-spread smart meters and DCUs should be assessed and supervised for the successful deployment and operation of AMI. An effective CPI used to assess and supervise the communication performance of each smart meter was proposed in this paper. Reading success rate and response time were used to design the proposed CPI. A higher reading success rate usually indicates better stability of the communication network. A faster response time implies a higher communication performance. Fuzzy logic was adopted to integrate these measurements to calculate the proposed CPI. The CPIs for communication paths, DCUs and whole AMI can then be obtained from meter CPIs. Simulation results were used to clarify the basic concepts and implementation of proposed CPI. The field communication measurements acquired from an actual small-scale PLC-based AMI were used to demonstrate the validity of the proposed CPI. From experimental results, it can be observed that the CPIs for each meter and communication path can be assessed and supervised. Long-term monitoring of CPIs for meters, DCUs and communication paths, will be able to identify the weaknesses of communication network and be supportive of the operation of AMI. Other communication factors such as the link quality indicator, received signal strength indicator, signal-to-noise ratio etc. can also be measured and  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Meter**} & **Average** & **Standard** & \multirow{2}{*}{**Meter**} & **Average** & **Standard** & \multirow{2}{*}{**Meter**} & **Average** & **Standard** \\  & **of CPI** & **Deviation of** & & **of CPI** & & **Deviation of** & **of CPI** & **Deviation of** \\  & **(\%)** & **CPI** (\%) & & **(\%)** & **CPI** (\%) & & **(\%)** & **CPI** (\%) \\ \hline  
\\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 6: Average and Standard Deviation of Meter CPIs for the Actual Small-Scale PLC-based AMI.  
Figure 19: CPIs and 5-Day Average CPIs of Smart Meter \(M_{1}\).  
integrated into the proposed CPI and will be further investigated. The proposed CPI can also be used to access and supervise the communication performance of smart cities and will also be studied in future research.  
[PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] proposed and designed the effective and efficient CPI for AMI. [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] worked together to collect the filed measurements of the actual small-scale PLC-based AMI and finished the simulation and experimental results for the communication performance assessment of AMI.  
This research was financially supported by the \"Project for Research on International Energy Policy and Technologies Development on AMI Value-Added Services\" of the Institute for Information Industry subsidized by the Ministry of Economy Affairs of Taiwan and Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan under Contracts MOST 107-3113-E-110-001 and MOST 104-2221-E-110-042-MY3.  
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.