The way of generating and distributing energy throughout the electrical grid to all users is evolving. The concept of Smart Grid (SG) took place to enhance the management of the electrical grid infrastructure and its functionalities from the traditional system to an improved one. To measure the energy consumption of the users is one of these functionalities that, in some countries, has already evolved from a periodical manual consumption reading to a more frequent and automatic one, leading to the concept of Smart Metering (SM). Technology improvement could be applied to the SM systems to allow, on one hand, a more efficient way to collect the energy consumption data of each user, and, on the other hand, a better distribution of the available energy through the infrastructure. Widespread communication solutions based on existing telecommunication infrastructures instead of using ad-hoc ones can be exploited for this purpose. In this paper, we recall the basic elements and the evolution of the SM network architecture focusing on how it could further improve in the near future. We report the main technologies and protocols which can be exploited for the data exchange throughout the infrastructure and the pros and cons of each solution. Finally, we propose an innovative solution as a possible evolution of the SM system. This solution is based on a set of Internet of Things (IoT) communication technologies called Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) which could be employed to improve the performance of the currently used technologies and provide additional functionalities. We also propose the employment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to periodically collect energy consumption data, with evident advantages especially if employed in rural and remote areas. We show some preliminary performance results which allow assessing the feasibility of the proposed approach.

中文翻译：

---

在智能电网中使用无人机和物联网的农村和偏远地区可能出现的智能计量系统演进

整个电网中向所有用户产生和分配能量的方式正在发展。智能电网（SG）的概念的出现是为了增强对电网基础设施及其功能的管理，从传统系统到改进的系统。衡量用户的能源消耗是这些功能之一，在某些国家/地区，该功能已从定期的手动消耗读数演变为更频繁，更自动的读数，从而引发了智能计量（SM）的概念。可以将技术改进应用于SM系统，以便一方面提供一种更有效的方式来收集每个用户的能耗数据，另一方面，通过基础架构更好地分配可用能量。为此，可以利用基于现有电信基础架构而不是使用临时基础架构的广泛通信解决方案。在本文中，我们回顾了SM网络体系结构的基本要素和发展，重点是在不久的将来如何进一步改进。我们报告了可用于整个基础架构中的数据交换的主要技术和协议，以及每种解决方案的利弊。最后，我们提出了一种创新的解决方案，作为SM系统的可能演变。该解决方案基于一组称为低功耗广域网（LPWAN）的物联网（IoT）通信技术，可用于改善当前使用的技术的性能并提供其他功能。我们还建议使用无人飞行器（UAV）定期收集能耗数据，这具有明显的优势，尤其是在农村和偏远地区使用时。我们显示了一些初步的性能结果，可以评估所提出方法的可行性。