SIDDAGANGA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, TUMKUR-527103

(An Autonomous Institute under Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum)

Major Project Synopsis

on

Automated Wireless Community Meter Reading

submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the completion of 4th year of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
in

ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

submitted by,

ROHIT KUMAR KASHYAP RACHIT KUSHWAHA NEERAJ KUMAR PIYUSH

1SI09EC081 1SI09EC069 1SI09EC061 1SI09EC066

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING (2012-13)

Automated Wireless Community Meter Reading

[2012-2013]

Automated Wireless Community Meter Reading

1. Introduction
With growing population and number of houses it is very difficult to measure and record power consumption in urban areas. Skyscrapers make it still difficult for manual meter reading as it is time consuming and prone to human errors. It is very much required that an automated meter reading system must be evolved so that the process of recording of energy consumption in households and industry can be made easier and accurate.

2. Concept
This project is aimed at a solution that provides easy, cost-effective and accurate Automated Metering System or AMS. This system will comprise of A Precision Digital Energy Meter using AVR and Zigbee interface for high speed data transfer. A Wireless Network Protocol or WNP which will use a dedicated protocol to transfer recorded itemized data through Zigbee. Handheld Device which will be used as buffer to collect data from meter wirelessly and transfer it to computer. Software Backend which will be hosted by a computer and collects and itemize data in organized fashion.

Precision Digital Energy Meter

Wireless Network Protocol

Wireless Network Protocol

Figure 1: Concept

Department of ECE, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur-03

Automated Wireless Community Meter Reading

[2012-2013]

3. Design
The design of this project will consist of four stages. Upon completion the project will be an industrial compliant system complete to be introduced for potential customers in market. The four stages are, Designing a digital energy meter using PIC. Designing of dedicated Wireless network Protocol using Zigbee. Designing of Handheld device using ARM interfaced to SD card. Making Software Backend for PC to be used with this system.

a. Digital Energy Meter

The digital energy meter measures AC power, instantaneous and average, 01200 W, as well as measure AC energy consumption in kilowatt-hours (or watt-hours). It provides digital readout of power and energy, and it should be easy to hook up.

Figure 2: Digital Meter Block Diagram The power-supply subsystem supplies DC power to the other subsystems. The microcontroller and A/D subsystem acquire data and compute power readings that are then displayed by the LCD subsystem. Figure 1 shows how the subsystems link together. This
Department of ECE, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur-03 3

Automated Wireless Community Meter Reading

[2012-2013]

power meter will have four operational modes. The power mode displays the power consumed in watts. By accumulating power over time, the energy mode will display watthours or kilowatt-hours. The average power mode will display energy consumed over time in watts. The remaining mode will display the time elapsed since reset in hours, minutes, and seconds. The power meter toggles through these four modes automatically.

b. Wireless Network Protocol

Wireless network refers to any type of computer network that is not connected by cables of any kind. It is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and enterprise (business) installations avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment locations. Wireless networks are generally implemented and administered using radio communication.

Figure 3: Zigbee Protocol Stack

The wireless network will use Zigbee for communication. Zigbee is a specification for a suite of high level communication protocols using small, low-power digital radios based on an IEEE 802 standard for personal area networks. ZigBee devices are often used in mesh network form to transmit data over longer distances, passing data through intermediate devices to reach more distant ones. This allows ZigBee networks to be formed ad-hoc, with

Department of ECE, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur-03

Automated Wireless Community Meter Reading

[2012-2013]

no centralized control or high-power transmitter/receiver able to reach all of the devices. Any Zigbee device can be tasked with running the network. Zigbee is targeted at applications that require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking. Zigbee has a defined rate of 250kbit/s, best suited for periodic or intermittent data or a single signal transmission from a sensor or input device. Applications include wireless light switches, electrical meters with in-home-displays, traffic management systems, and other consumer and industrial equipment that requires short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates. The technology defined by the ZigBee specification is intended to be simpler and less expensive than other WPANs, such as Bluetooth.

c. Handheld Device
The handheld will consist of an ARM based device that will store data collected from all the meters onto a SD card. This data will then be transferred on to a computer using a wired connection.

Figure 4: Block Diagram of Handheld Device

Data logging requires at least in order of megabytes of storage. To get that kind of storage the ARM microcontroller uses the same type that's in every digital camera and mp3 player i.e. flash cards. Often called SD or microSD cards, they can pack gigabytes into a space smaller than a coin. Because SD cards require a lot of data transfer, they're really only good when connected up to the hardware SPI pins on a microcontroller. The hardware SPI pins are much faster than 'bit-banging' the interface code using another set of pins.

Department of ECE, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur-03

Automated Wireless Community Meter Reading

[2012-2013]

The Serial Peripheral Interface Bus or SPI bus is a synchronous serial data link standard, named by Motorola that operates in full duplex mode. Devices communicate

in master/slave mode where the master device initiates the data frame. Multiple slave devices are allowed with individual slave select (chip select) lines. Sometimes SPI is called a fourwire serial bus, contrasting with three, two, and one wire serial buses. SPI is often referred to as SSI (Synchronous Serial Interface).

d. Software Backend
The software would work in two modes one is automatic another is manual. The software itself is capable of logging data with date and time. It converts the data received to Watt-Hour and logs it in a file at application directory under name of data.dat. it will be developed on windows platform using VB6. The software will receive the recorded file via same dedicated protocol for security risks. Data will be stored and printed from same software. Advantage of having data on a computer is that it can be used to publish on internet or send a notification or generate e-bills. The recorded data once received would be available to be observed day-wise, week-wise of month-wise manner for presence or detection of any fault.

4. References
David A Bell, Op-Amps and Linear I Cs, Fourth Edition, 2006, Prentice Hall India, New Delhi. K Sam Shamugham, Digital and Analog Communication, Fourth Edition, 2006, John Wiley and Sons, New York. W.S. Woodward, Optical isolator computes watts, Electronic Design, 102103, October 14, 1994. William Stallings, Wireless Communication and Networking, Prenctice Hall 2002, ISBN 0-13-040864-6. IEEE Standards 802.15.4, IEEE 2003, ISBN 0-7381-3677-5 SS95127

Department of ECE, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur-03