EMMNet: Sensor Networking for Electricity Meter Monitoring

Abstract

Smart sensors are emerging as a promising technology for a large number of application domains. This paper presents a collection of requirements and guidelines that serve as a basis for a general smart sensor architecture to monitor electricity meters. It also presents an electricity meter monitoring network, named EMMNet, comprised of data collectors, data concentrators, hand-held devices, a centralized server, and clients. EMMNet provides long-distance communication capabilities, which make it suitable suitable for complex urban environments. In addition, the operational cost of EMMNet is low, compared with other existing remote meter monitoring systems based on GPRS. A new dynamic tree protocol based on the application requirements which can significantly improve the reliability of the network is also proposed. We are currently conducting tests on five networks and investigating network problems for further improvements. Evaluation results indicate that EMMNet enhances the efficiency and accuracy in the reading, recording, and calibration of electricity meters.

Resolution-Enhanced Harmonic and Interharmonic Measurement for Power Quality Analysis in Cyber-Physical Energy System

“…Wireless communication technologies help achieve remote control and monitoring without cable cost and wired communication infrastructures. Among the above technologies, cellular networks (3G/4G) and World interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) are widely adopted in Neighborhood Area Networks (NANs), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 (Wi-Fi) is broadly used in Local Area Networks (LANs), the growing use of IEEE 802.15.1(Bluetooth) helps connect the Personal Area Networks (PANs), and IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) may become the best choice for WSNs due to its low power consumption, low cost and self-organization [ 17 , 18 , 40 , 41 ]. Leveraging the advantages of WSNs, distributed sensing and state estimation can be easily realized, and sensors will cooperate against the inherent communication noise or packet losses to achieve a more robust system-wide observation [ 2 , 42 , 43 ].…”

“…Additionally, noise and time-varying nature of the power signals should also be considered in the design of the measuring devices and algorithms. Distributed and advanced sensors equipped with advanced algorithms bring us a deeper and more accurate comprehension of the whole system [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]; however, they also make us confront a tradeoff between accuracy and computational complexity. High-resolution methods usually need considerable computational cost, thus mostly applied in off-line processing, and low-resolution methods such as FFT-based methods are more likely to be implemented in real-time hardware in contrast.…”

Distributed Smart Device for Monitoring, Control and Management of Electric Loads in Domotic Environments

“…The proposed system structure offers the building/home monitoring, control and management of electrical loads based on communications over existing powerlines (no new wires are needed) [ 5 ]. The system could be divided into the smart nodes and the central unit.…”

“…From a practical point of view, it is possible to have several of these subsystems sharing the same package, so that various types of smart sensors can be considered. The smart sensors are emerging as a promising technology in a large number of application domains: to estimate real-time high-resolution frequency in power systems [ 4 ]; to monitor real-time electricity consumption with long-distance communication capabilities [ 5 ]; to estimate motion dynamics, inclination and vibration parameters on industrial manipulator robot links based on two primary sensors: an encoder and a triaxial accelerometer [ 6 ]; to measure the plant transpiration fusing five primary sensors (air temperature, leaf temperature, air relative humidity, plant out relative humidity and ambient light) [ 7 ]. The device presented in this paper can be classified as smart sensor with actuation capability since electrical loads can be switched on/off by the devices according with the user's program and/or the command sent by the central control unit.…”