Experimental Validation of the Usability of Wi-Fi over Redundant Paths for Streaming Phasor Data

Applications performing streaming of phasor- measurement data require low latency and losses from the communication network. Traditionally, such requirements are realized through wired infrastructure. Recently, wireless infras- tructure has gained attention due to its low-cost and ease of deployment, but its poor quality-of-service is a strong deterrent for use in mission-critical applications. Recent studies have used measurements to explore the use of packet replication over redundant Wi-Fi paths, for obtaining the desired loss performance without hampering the end-to-end latency. However, these studies are done in a controlled, laboratory environment and do not reflect the real, in-field performance. In this paper, we perform extensive measurements using two co-located directional Wi-Fi links in a real-life setting, to experimentally validate the use of packet replication over Wi-Fi for streaming phasor data. In the setting that we evaluated, we find that the two channels are not fail-independent but the performance achieved with replication is very close to what it would be if they were to be independent. From the loss and latency statistics after replication, we conclude that replicating the phasor data over redundant Wi-Fi paths is a viable option for achieving the desired quality-of-service.