International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems 2007

Oct. 17-20, 2007 in COEX, Seoul, Korea

A Study on GOOSE Communication

based on lEC 61850 using MMS Ease Lite
Nhat Nguyen-Dinh, Gwan-Su Kim and Hong-Hee Lee
School of Electrical Engineering, University Of Ulsan, Ulsan, Korea
(Tel: 82-052-259-1478; E-mail: [email protected], {gskim94/hhee}@mail.ulsan.ac.kr)

Abstract: lEC 61850 "Communication networks and systems in substation" is not only the most advanced and
universal standard for communication but also a comprehensive system oriented standard for substation automation
system (SAS). The feature of lEC 61850 is that it covers communication, qualitative properties of engineering tools,
measures for quality management, and configuration management. Based on high speed peer to peer communications
(publisher/subscriber concept), the Generic Object Oriented System Event (GOOSE) is a model to transmit status
information in fast way to multi devices, and is applied to trips, blockings, and all indications for automatics. The paper
presents a study about communications in SAS and supplies a detailed analysis of the process of transferring GOOSE
message supported by MMS EASE Lite tool from the user's view point. The experiment results show the advantage of
using such communication and MMS EASE Lite tool.

Keywords: lEC 61850, lEDs, SAS, GOOSE, MMS EASE Lite, DATA-SET .

1. INTRODUCTION messages are used to replace the hard wired control

signal exchange between lEDs for interlocking,
lEC 61850 "Communication networks and systems in protection purposes, sensitive missions, time critical and
substations" was published between 2002 and 2005. highly reliability. The information exchange is based on
lEC 61850 is used as a global system standard because a publisher/subscriber mechanism. The publisher writes
it has main benefits such as : interoperability between the values in a local buffer at the sending side; the
devices from various suppliers; a friture proof standard receiver reads the values from a local buffer at the
because of the split between the application model and receiving side. The communication system is
the communication stack; a comprehensive standard for responsible to update the local buffers of the
all frmction in substation; a standard for a description subscribers.
language for the configuration of electrical substation
The GOOSE message is multicasted and received by
lEDs, called Substation Configuration description
the lEDs which have been configured to subscribe to it.
Language (SCL).
A general scheme of GOOSE communications between
According to lEC 61850, there are two models based lEDs is shown in Fig. 1.
on peer-to-peer communication: GOOSE and Sampled
values (SV). In this paper, we focus on GOOSE model.
GOOSE model is a very flexible, high priority and
reliable mechanism for the fast transmission of
substation events such as trips commands, alarms,
indications...
SISCO's MMS EASE Lite, lEC 61850 for embedded
system, is a source code package for the MMS protocol
and lEC 61850 that has been optimized to be used in
lEDs. It gives a jump start on developing lEC 61850 by
reducing the engineering effort, supports GOOSE, Fig. 1 General scheme of GOOSE communications
GSSE, and SCL.
between lEDs
Nowadays, because a "Test Device" is very
expensive, we are directed toward the PC-based tests The GOOSE messages contain information that
instead of real system tests. In this paper, with the allows the receiving device to know that a status has
advantage of MMS EASE Lite tool, we implement the changed and the time of the last status is changed. The
communication system to transmit GOOSE messages time of the last status change allows a receiving device
between lEDs simulated by PCs in protection to set local timers relating to a given event. The
application. An analysis of this process from the user's associated lEDs receiving the message use the
view point is also presented to add convenience for user. contained information to determine what the appropriate
protection response for the given state is. The
2. GOOSE MODEL appropriate action to GOOSE messages is needed when
a message timeout due to a communication failure is
Generic object oriented substation event (GOOSE) determined by local intelligence in the lEDs receiving
supports the exchange of a wide range of possible the GOOSE message. It can be used for Breaker Failure
common data organized by a DATA-SET. GOOSE

978-89-950038-6-2-98560/07/$ 15 ©ICROS
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Protection to trip the adjacent breakers or to provide times and hold times can be increased for the
distribution or sub-transmission bus protection based on subsequent messages until the maximum is reached.
GOOSE messages from the feeder protection IEDs. Normally, all devices sending GOOSE messages shall
Figure 2 gives an overview of classes and services of continue to send the message with a long cycle time,
the GOOSE model. The message exchange is based on even if no status/value change has occurred. This
the multicast application association. If the value of one ensures that devices which have been activated recently
or several DataAttributes of a specific functional will know the current status values of their peer devices.
constraint (for example st) in the DATA-SET are In order to achieve high speed performance and
changed, the transmission buffer of the publisher is reduce the network traffic during severe fault
updated with the local service “publish” and the values conditions, the GOOSE message has been designed on
are transmitted with a GOOSE message. The the base of the idea to have a single message that
DATA-SET may have several members (numbered conveys all required protection scheme information
from 1 up – the numbers shall be called MemberOffset). regarding an individual protection IED. It represents a
Each member shall have a MemberReference referring state machine that reports the status of device in the IED
the DataAttribute with a specific functional constraint to its peers.
(FC). Mapping specific services of the communication The figure 3 includes the common components used
network will update the content of the buffer in to facilitate the IEC 61850 GOOSE Class Object. In the
subscribers. New values received in the reception buffer table the different parameters are defined as follows:
are signaled to the application. DatSet : The parameter “data set” contains the
Considering the importance of functions performed ObjectReference of the DATA-SET (taken from the
by using GOOSE messages, IEC 61850 defines very GOOSE Control Block GoCB) whose values of the
strict performance requirements. The total peer-to-peer members shall be transmitted.
time should not exceed 4ms. Another important AppID : This parameter is the identifier of the
requirement for the GOOSE message is very high LOGICAL-DEVICE (taken from the GoCB) in which
reliability. Since messages are not confirmed, but the GoCB is located.
multicasted, and considered as an important message GoCBRef : : This parameter is the reference of the
such as Initiate Breaker Failure Protection, there has to GOOSE control block
be a mechanism to ensure that the IED can receive the T – time stamp : This parameter contains the time at
message and operate as expected. To achieve a high which the attribute StNum was incremented.
level of reliability, messages must be repeated as long as StNum : The parameter “state number” contains the
the state persists. To maximize dependability and counter that increments each time a GOOSE message
security, a message should have an enough time to live has been sent and a value change has been detected
which is known as “hold time”. After the hold time within the DATA-SET specified by DatSet.
expires, the message (status) will expire unless the same SqNum : The parameter “sequence number” contains
status message is repeated or a new message is received the counter that increments each time when a GOOSE
prior to the expiration of the hold time. The repeat time message has been sent.
for the initial GOOSE message is short and the repeat

Fig. 2 Goose control model

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 Fig. 3 GOOSE message definition according to IEC 61850

Test : This parameter shall indicate with the value of implement this work. However, MMS EASE Lite was
TRUE that the values of the message shall not be used created to help users an easier way to do this. A
for operational purposes ( testing purpose). mechanism of transferring GOOSE messages with
ConfRev : The parameter “configuration revision” MMS EASE Lite tool is described in Fig. 4.
(taken from the GoCB) contains the count of the
number of times that the configuration of the
Create a GOOSE Control Block iecGoosePubcreate
DATA-SET referenced by DatSet has been changed.
and User Tracking Information
NdsCom : The parameter “needs commissioning”
contains the attribute NdsCom (taken from the GoCB)
of the GoCB and is used to indicate that the GoCB IEC_GOOSE_SEND_USER_INFO*goosehandle
requires further configuration.
GOOSEData [1..n] : GOOSEData contains the user Poll the data-changed information
defined information (of the members of DATA-SET) to (Update Data) iecGoosePublish
be included in a GOOSE message.
Value : The parameter contains the value of a
Encode and send GOOSE
member of the DATA-SET referenced in the GoCB.

3. TRANSMIT GOOSE MESSAGES WITH Encoded GOOSE message sent to

MMS EASE LITE TOOL destination address (lpdu on subnet)

SISCO’s MMS-EASE Lite (Embedded Application

Service Element) is a C language Application Program SUB-NETWORK (Ethernet)
Interface (API) for the Manufacturing Message
Specification (MMS) protocol, IEC61850. It consists of Clnp_snet_read
Receive a lpdu from sub-network
source code modules derived from the MMS-EASE
product line as well as a set of new files optimized for
small system applications. MMS-EASE Lite has been Pointer to subnet data request
created to minimize code and data space requirements SN_UNITDATA*sn_req
and allows resource-limited devices to embed MMS Chk_for_goose_msg
within the device in a cost-effective and resource Check for GOOSE message: receive and
efficient manner. It provides a mechanism for decode the encoded GOOSE message
applications to encode and decode MMS PDUs. In
addition, there is an easy way to use high-level Fig. 4 Mechanism of transferring GOOSE with MMS
application framework (MVL) designed to speed the EASE Lite Tool
development process. MMS-EASE Lite gives the
Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) a jump start For applications, MMS EASE Lite is used by OEM
on developing IEC61850 and MMS compliant devices to implement unique features of IEC 61850 into their
by significantly reducing the engineering effort. products. The useful benefits of IEC 61850 standard and
The main works of transferring GOOSE messages are customer demands are main reasons for their jobs.
encoding and decoding GOOSE messages. A sending These unique features include self-describing IEDs,
IED encodes GOOSE messages and sends them to standardized object definitions and naming conventions,
Ethernet. Receiving IEDs check messages from standardized configuration language, and high
Ethernet to retrieve encoded GOOSE messages and then performance IED-to-IED communications that all
decode them. From user’s view point, it is not easy to

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contribute to lower substation automation costs by
reducing manual configuration and custom
programming extensions. Normally, the first steps
include investigation and careful analysis of the IEC
61850 standard requirement and its capabilities, the
code implementation using the MMS-EASE Lite and
the AX-S4 MMS client software for testing. In our
opinion, AX-S4 MMS, IEC 61850 interface for
windows applications, is a good model tool for tests, but
SISCO’s MMS-EASE Lite source code is better for
researchers.
One of the advantages of MMS EASE Lite is time
saving for users to implement such communication.
Users can interact with this process through more
simple functions. In fact, this mechanism is useful for
users to understand and use MMS EASE Lite to
implement communication between IEDs.

4. EXPERIMENT
SISCO is ready to help all users of IEC 61850 who
want to implement this important new standard in their
products and systems in a practical and cost-effective Fig. 6 Capture Goose message using EtheReal
manner using field-proven technology. In our case, until Some tests are going to be done. We want to simulate
now we used MMS EASE Lite to research and learn the response of one IED after it receives one trip
more about IEC 61850 and its applications in practice. message. We experiment protection application as
Then we apply this tool to make some PC-based test for shown in Fig. 7. In this paper, PCs are used to simulate
describing GOOSE communications between PCs and real protective relays, test device and test computer.
checking some GOOSE message attributes. Test computer (PC1) is used to create situations and
We send and receive one GOOSE message between alerts events. The second computer (PC2) works as
two nodes (PCs) based on MMS EASE Lite source protective relay which receives GOOSE message from
code. The unnecessary parts must be edited and test computer. The last one (PC3) represents test device
eliminated. The program is run in 2 modes : subscriber that responds to PC2’s alerts. All PCs are connected to
and publisher (one after another). If the subscriber runs Ethernet simulated the substation local area network.
first, the successful transmission notes will happen. GOOSE message analyzer is added in all PCs and it
monitors received and time-stamps messages from the
IEDs under simulation in order to evaluate the relay
performance.
Protective relay

PC1 GOOSE PC2

Ethernet
Test Computer Hub

PC3
Figs. 5 Successful transmission Goose message Test
Device
After finishing, we use EtheReal, a message analyzer, Fig. 7 Scheme of high speed peer-to-peer
to monitor the Goose message that we already sent. If communication based simulation
capture process is about three minutes, we can see that
the Goose message is published periodically. Checking The GOOSE messages must have high reliability.
the GOOSE data with each new message, sqNum There must be a mechanism to ensure that the receiving
parameter is incremented by one until twelve which is IED receives the messages and operates as expected.
the maximum for “hold time”. stNum parameter has not Our experiment for GOOSE message transmission
changed. After the hold time expires, the program using shows that GOOSE is a fast and correct communication
auto reset” form to reset automatically Goose message model which satisfies the real-time requirements for
and send again; stNum is incremented by one. protection application. It also proves the powerful
convenience of using MMS EASE Lite from user’s
view point.

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 5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a process of transferring GOOSE
messages based on MMS EASE Lite is analyzed in
detail to supply users an easier way of accessing
knowledge of IEC 61850, GOOSE, etc. An experiment
is also done to show how to apply this tool. Toward the
PC-based tests instead of real system ones, MMS EASE
Lite tool is useful and good tool for user to implement
applications with IEC 61850.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank University of Ulsan
and Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy which
partly supported this research through the
Network-based Automation Research Center (NARC) at
University of Ulsan.

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