# Towards an Efficient Method for Large-Scale Wi-SUN-Enabled AMI Network Planning
## 7 Conclusions  
This study presented the AIDA method for router/gateway placement in AMI planning that evaluates the LRP between SMs and key device positions, calculated based on a detailed analysis of the terrain profile. In addition, the method presented the use of an MST-based technique for the multihop connectivity analysis aiming to minimize the number of connections to be analyzed. The research explored using AI-driven heuristic approaches and clustering techniques for the method implementation. To investigate the method's capacity to deal with large-scale smart grids, the experiments evaluated real data from cities in the south of Brazil totaling over 230,000 smart meters. Experiments in four large-scale scenarios demonstrate that the coverage and average LRP values computed by the AIDA method are within established connection thresholds, suggesting topologies that consider the actual terrain profile particularities and other system requirements. Using a detailed terrain profile analysis to compute the path loss between devices to be connected demonstrated viability even for the largest region evaluated (with over 150,000 smart meters). The AIDA method used two optimized strategies to minimize the number of connections to be evaluated. First, it used a grid approach to select candidate positions. Second, it uses an MST to evaluate the multihop connections in cases where the smart meter cannot directly connect to a router or gateway but through another smart meter. The AIDA method introduces two different smart meters clustering approaches: bottom-up, which privileges the quality of links; and top-down, which focuses on demanding fewer devices. Furthermore, we presented the computational complexity (time complexity) of these two clustering approaches and the method's main components descriptively to allow the reader to visualize the participation of each element in the execution time of the method. In the experiments, the top-down approach reduced by 14.7%, on average, the total number of gateways and routers positioned compared to the bottom-up approach. Bottom-up, in turn, presented a higher average LRP for the links, prioritizing the quality of the links over cost minimization. Considering that both strategies can present results ensuring high-quality links, both are applicable and may be selected according to the smart grid scenario constraints and objectives, prioritizing the use of candidate positions with DAs. In addition, experiments using a general path loss model (Erceg-SUI model) demonstrated that the AIDA can reach solutions demanding fewer key devices yet ensuring LRP values in the established threshold. In these experiments, AIDA used its proposed propagation model, and presented an average relative gain regarding the number of selected CPs varying from 40.562% to 43.273% when compared to AIDA using the Erceg-SUI model as the propagation model. Furthermore, regarding the processing time, the AIDA method with its original path loss model proved to be more efficient than when evaluated using the general path loss model. **Author Contributions:** M.A.M. : Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing--Original Draft preparation, Writing--Review and Editing, Visualization. M.L.d.S.C.V. : Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Writing--Original Draft preparation. M.B. : Project administration, Resources, Writing--Review and Editing. I.J.C. : Hardware, Conceptualization, Writing--Review and Editing. E.J. : Software, Validation, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing--Review and Editing. V.C.Z. : Project administration, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization, Resources, Writing--Review and Editing, M.E.P. : Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Writing--Original Draft preparation, Writing--Review and Editing, Supervision. F.E. : Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Writing--Original Draft preparation, Writing--Review and Editing, Supervision.