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Microgrid is a community-based power generation and distribution system that interconnects smart homes with renewable energy sources (RESs). Microgrid efficiently and economically generates power for electricity consumers and operates in both islanded and grid-connected modes. In this study, we proposed optimization schemes for reducing electricity cost and minimizing peak to average ratio (PAR) with maximum user comfort (UC) in a smart home. We considered a grid-connected microgrid for electricity generation which consists of wind turbine and photovoltaic (PV) panel. First, the problem was mathematically formulated through multiple knapsack problem (MKP) then solved by existing heuristic techniques: grey wolf optimization (GWO), binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO), genetic algorithm (GA) and wind-driven optimization (WDO). Furthermore, we also proposed three hybrid schemes for electric cost and PAR reduction: (1) hybrid of GA and WDO named WDGA; (2) hybrid of WDO and GWO named WDGWO; and (3) WBPSO, which is the hybrid of BPSO and WDO. In addition, a battery bank system (BBS) was also integrated to make our proposed schemes more cost-efficient and reliable, and to ensure stable grid operation. Finally, simulations were performed to verify our proposed schemes. Results show that our proposed scheme efficiently minimizes the electricity cost and PAR. Moreover, our proposed techniques, WDGA, WDGWO and WBPSO, outperform the existing heuristic techniques.

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Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a promising field that may improve the quality of life by using it in patients' health monitoring process. However, the mobility and open access of wireless networks have resulted in several security gaps which may lead to critical health-related data compromise issues. Therefore, there existed a need to develop a mechanism to secure patient health-related data from all security impairments. Recently, Kompara et al.[1] proposed a lightweight authentication scheme that depends on the assumption that the base node is reliable. Nevertheless, it does not seem feasible practically. Hence, the researchers present a lightweight cryptographic scheme based on three levels that provide anonymous key agreement and authentication for the data communicated on the wireless channel. The proposed authentication scheme shows its efficiency to protect against various known cyber-attacks especially the base station compromise attack and sensor node impersonation attack. The scheme was formally verified with BAN logic and simulated informally using the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocol and Applications (AVISPA) tool. The proposed key agreement and authentication scheme was also compared with the results of other related researches. The simulation results and security analysis indicate that the proposed improved scheme has overcome different identified gaps in terms of storage requirements, computational, and communicational costs.

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