Communications in massive IoT and smart energy grids networks 

The talk discusses challenges andopportunities for telecommunication technology in IoT and smart grids applications. Inreference to the latter, the introduction of renewables and the goal ofincreasing efficiency and reliability is revolutionizing the energy grids.Energy grids must become intelligent and be able to manage energy flows andflexibly adapt to changes in production and demand. This paradigm has fosteredthe creation of new business models on top of technology advances. The physicalinfrastructure must embed sensing, communication and processing capabilities.In the talk, emphasis is given to the requirements posed by massive networks,and to the approaches for massive connectivity offered by new wireless andpower line communication technologies, e.g., 4G-5G cellular machine typecommunications, long range and low power wireless access, as well as narrowband and broadband PLC for IoT. Advances in power line communicationsare presented, and in particular PLC wireless hybridization, applications ofPLC to enable grid diagnostics by processing high frequency signals, andmachine learning tools for PLC.