TY  - EJOU
AU  - Rabbani, Sajjad 
AU  - Asif, Rao Muhammad 
AU  - Alduailij, Mai 
AU  - Yousaf, Adnan 
AU  - Kaur, Upinder 
AU  - Bharany, Salil 
AU  - Rehman, Ateeq Ur 

TI  - Secure Multi-Zone Optimization of Demand Response in 5G-Enabled Smart Grids with Trust-Aware Communication
T2  - Computers, Materials \& Continua

PY  - 
VL  - 
IS  - 
SN  - 1546-2226

AB  - The implementation of 5G communication in smart grids facilitates real-time demand response (DR) management, but at the same time creates several problems concerning cyber security and communication reliability, as well as user trust. Currently, DR methods mainly aim at energy optimization and neglect the combined effect of communication performance, cyber threats, and trust-aware participation. In this work, a secure multi-zone optimization model for a 5G-enabled smart grid is proposed that jointly optimizes communication efficiency, cybersecurity mechanisms and DR control within a single framework. The system is divided into five operational zones: Utility layer, Secure 5G core and edge, Access and gateway layer, Local control layer, Consumer layer. The communication- and security-aware optimization formulation is defined to optimize the latency, packet error rate, security overhead and DR shortfall, while maximizing reliability, fairness, resilience and secure user participation. Besides, a trust-aware iterative optimization algorithm is proposed to adaptively align the authentication, intrusion detection, clustering, secure communication and DR activation under different network conditions and attacks. The simulation results illustrate that the proposed approach significantly enhances the performance of the system, with low latency (≈8 ms), a low packet error rate (≈0.03), high signal quality, and high DR participation in comparison with the benchmark approaches. The framework is also capable of supporting effective operation under cyberattack scenarios and in the presence of different levels of trust, making it a very effective framework for secure, reliable and scalable DR management in next-generation smart grids.
KW  - Demand response optimization; cybersecurity-aware optimization; trust-aware communication; cyber-physical energy systems

DO  - 10.32604/cmc.2026.086500