With the rapid development of smart grid,the automatic control system of substations is facing new challenges and requirements.In this paper,a substation automatic control system based on short-range wireless communication technology is designed,by adopting ZigBee communication protocol,constructing a hybrid network topology,and introducing energy-aware routing algorithms,real-time data acquisition,remote monitoring,and fault diagnosis functions of the substation are realized.Simulation experimental results show that the designed system not only meets the requirements of real-time data transmission and reliability,but also has advantages such as low power consumption and high fault tolerance,providing a feasible solution for the intelligent upgrading of substation automatic control systems.