Shang-Wen Luan

Development of a smart power meter for AMI based on ZigBee communication

Many governments deploy ubiquitous IT project, which aims to combine the latest wireless network and wide-band technologies etc. to accomplish a ubiquitous wireless communication network. The ubiquitous wireless communication network can be utilized for the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). Therefore, this paper tries to use the new wireless communication technologies to design and implement a ZigBee-based smart power meter. An outage recording system is also designed and embedded into the smart meter. The microcontroller of Microchip dsPIC30F series is used to develop the proposed smart power meter. A ZigBee system is then deigned and integrated into the proposed power meter, and used to transmit the detailed power consumption data and outage event data to rear-end processing system. The proposed smart power meter cannot only be used for power consumption data collection but also for outage event data recording. The proposed system has great potential to be used to build the area-based AMI. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed system. Besides, the application of ZigBee communication in power area may, expectedly, lead to make a definite contribution to ubiquitous IT project.

Development of an automatic reliability calculation system for advanced metering infrastructure

The installation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is looked upon as a bridge to the construction of smart grids; especially, while most of the power meters are still mechanical ones without digitization. An AMI consists of smart power meter, communication technology, meter data management, and associated software and hardware. After AMI has been implemented, many advanced functions e.g. automatic and accurate reliability calculation systems can be achieved. Therefore, this paper tries to develop an automatic reliability system for AMI. A ZigBee-based smart power meter with outage recording function is designed first. The ZigBee-based power meters are used to transmit the detailed power consumption data and outage event data to rear-end processing system periodically. According to the detailed and accurate data stored in the rear-end database, an automatic and accurate reliability calculation system can be designed sequentially. The customer interruption costs can also be estimated by the proposed system. Experimental results show that the proposed system has great potential to be integrated into AMI to improve the accuracy of reliability calculation.

Design and implementation of a RFID-based power meter and outage recording system

Radio frequency identification (RFID) system is looked upon as one of the top ten important technologies in the 20th century. In the upcoming years, the public area applications are the key issue in developing RFID. Power system is innately bulky, wide-spreading, and is, definitely, an extremely important application area of RFID. In the power area, the RFID can be implemented on apparatus management, procedure control, power consumption management and personnel access control. Additionally, RFID can be applied extensively to customers. By integrating RFID into a power meter and outage recorder, the power consumption data and power reliability information of customers can be fully collected and recorded. This paper tries to design and implement a RFID-based power meter and outage recording system. The microcontroller of Microchip dsPIC30F series is used to develop a small-scale power meter and outage recorder. The proposed RFID system is then embedded into the power meter and records the power data in tag. Due to the uniqueness of RFID tag, the power consumption data and outage information of customers can all be recorded and then be identified in the rear-end processing system. Experimental results show the validity of the proposed system.

Wireless network deployment for intelligent fault indicators - A case study with ZigBee

This paper studies the wireless ZigBee network deployment for distribution feeders, especially, for the intelligent fault indicators mounted on distribution feeders. Researches reveal that ZigBee is suitable for constructing the communication network within distribution automation and/or smart grids; however, the network deployment should be carefully evaluated to make sure that the communication quality, packet error rate for example, is acceptable. Therefore, communication quality evaluation software for ZigBee network deployment which makes use of Google map is designed in this paper. The proposed software can be used to select the candidate locations for intelligent fault indicators placement by inspecting the terrain and possible obstacles from Google map and then the actual field test can be conducted. Different test scenarios including urban feeders, suburban feeders and mountainous feeders with respect to different transmitting range and obstacles can be conducted in the proposed software. The ZigBee network deployment procedure for distribution feeder is also recommended. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed system.

RFID-based autonomous mobile car

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system is looked upon as one of the top ten important technologies in the 20th century. Industrial automation application is one of the key issues in developing RFID. Therefore, this paper designs and implements a RFID-based autonomous mobile car for more extensively application of RFID systems. The microcontroller of Microchip PIC18F4550 is used to control the autonomous mobile car and to communicate with RFID reader. By storing the moving control commands such as turn right, turn left, speed up and speed down etc. into the RFID tags beforehand and sticking the tags on the tracks, the autonomous mobile car can then read the moving control commands from the tags and accomplish the proper actions. Due to the convenience and non-contact characteristic of RFID systems, the proposed mobile car has great potential to be used for industrial automation, goods transportation, data transmission, and unmanned medical nursing etc. in the future. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed mobile car.

An RFID-based power meter and outage recording system

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is looked upon as one of the top ten important technologies of the twentieth century. In coming years, public area applications are the key issue in developing RFID. Power systems are innately bulky, large, and definitely, an extremely important application area for RFID. In power areas, RFID has great potential to be applied extensively to customers. Therefore, an RFID-based power meter and outage recording system is proposed in this article. The proposed system can be used to fully collect and record power consumption data and power reliability information on customers. A small-scale power meter and outage recorder is designed first and then an RFID system is designed and embedded into the power meter and employed to record the power data in tags. A handheld meter management system is also designed in this article to collect the data stored in the tags and synchronize the collected data with rear-end processing if necessary. Due to the uniqueness of RFID tags, the power consumption data and outage information on customers can be recorded and then identified in a rear-end processing system. Experimental results show the validity of the proposed system.