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GSM based automatic energy meter reading system with instant billing Conference Paper · March 2013 DOI: 10.1109/iMac4 10.1109/iMac4s.2013.6526 s.2013.6526385 385
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65
GSM Based Automatic Energy Meter Reading System with Instant Billing Ashna.k
Sudhish N George
PG Scholar, Electronics & Communication Dept. National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India,673601 E-mail:
[email protected].
Assistant Professor, Electronics & Communication Dept. National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India,673601 E-mail: sudhish @nitc.ac.in
Abstract — The technology of e-metering (Electronic Metering) has gone through rapid technological advancements and there is increased demand for a reliable and efficient Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system. This paper presents the design of a simple low cost wireless GSM energy meter and its associated web interface, for automating billing and managing the collected data globally. The proposed system replaces traditional meter reading methods and enables remote access of existing energy meter by the energy provider. Also they can monitor the meter readings regularly without the person visiting each house. A GSM based wireless communication module is integrated with electronic energy meter of each entity to have remote access over the usage of electricity. A PC with a GSM receiver at the other end, which contains the database acts as the billing point. Live meter reading from the GSM enabled energy meter is sent back to this billing point periodically and these details are updated in a central database. A new interactive, user friendly graphical user interface is developed using Microsoft visual studio .NET framework and C#. With proper authentication, users can access the developed web page details from anywhere in the world. The complete monthly usage and due bill is messaged back to the customer after processing these data. Keywords—Automatic Meter Reading System (AMRS); GSM; PIC; Short Messaging System (SMS); Visual Studio .NET; C#.
I.
I NTRODUCTION
as a result of the analogue and mechanical nature of the components in these meters. Collection of meter readings is also inefficient, because a meter reader has to physically be onsite to take the readings. This method of collecting of meter readings becomes more problematic and costly when readings have to be collected from vast, and often scattered rural areas. Meter readers are reluctant to make the effort to travel to such areas and will often submit inaccurate estimations of the amount of electricity consumed. For households at the top of high buildings and luxury housing plots, traditional meter reading is highly inefficient. There exists chance for missing bills, absence of consumer etc. Even though these conventional meters were replaced with more efficient electronic energy meters these problems still persists. So a system which will provide the bill in users mobile will be more suitable in the current scenario. Here a new method of post paid electronic energy metering is introduced in this paper which will automatically sense the used energy, records these reading continuously, then sends it to the billing point through the existing GSM network. Finally after processing the collected data bill is generated using a web based system software and is send back to the customer as SMS (Short Messaging System).As it is web oriented once the data is updated, the registered users and authority can monitor and analyse the generated bill of any month by sitting anywhere in the world. II.
Electrical power has become indispensable to human survival and progress. Apart from efforts to meet growing demand, automation in the energy distribution is also necessary to enhance people’s life standard. Traditional meter reading by human operator is inefficient to meet the future residential development needs. So there is increased demand for Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) systems which collects meter readings electronically, and its application is expanding over industrial, commercial and utility environment. Electronic utility meters are an important step towards automating the utility metering process. Automated utility meters have many new features that help to reduce the cost of utilities to customers and the cost of delivering utilities to the utility provider. The onset of rural electrification provides opportunities for new and more efficient metering technologies to be implemented. Traditional electro-mechanical meters, still widely used today, are prone to drift over temperature and time
LITERATURE SURVEY AND R ELATED WORKS
For this work existing meter reading techniques in India are analyzed and conducted an extensive study on different energy measuring instruments available now. In existing system either an electronic energy meter or an electro-mechanical meter is fixed in the premise for measuring the usage. The meters currently in use are only capable of recording kWh units. The kWh units used then still have to be recorded by meter readers monthly, on foot. The recorded data need to be processed by a meter reading company. For processing the meter reading, company needs to firstly link each recorded power usage datum to an account holder and then determine the amount owed by means of the specific tariff in use. Many systems built on various platforms have been proposed by different research groups all over the world for Automatic Meter Reading. There are two types of AMR systems, wire-based and wireless. Power Line Carrier (PLC) and Telephone Line Network (optical/ cable) are wire-based
This project was supported a nd financed by National Institute of Technology, Calicut, INDIA, 673601.
978-1-4673-5090-7/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
66 AMR system and several related works are available. Many emetering systems have now been proposed, based on GPRS, Bluetooth, GSM as explained in [1], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] and [8].Design of an Electric Energy Meter for long-distance data information transfers which based upon GPRS is proposed in [1]. These systems can’t be implemented so easily because the regular use of GPRS is still a dream to the common people .A GSM Energy meter with instant billing facility is introduced in [2] and [3],but still the problem of missing SMS will degrade the accuracy and performance. A more reliable and userfriendly system with web portal for multiple access using the advanced Visual studio .net frame work is created in this project which will manage the data efficiently even if there is loss of SMS. It makes the design different from the previous proposals. The GSM/GPRS channel is a very useful means of communication as sending data as SMS turns out to be a very handy tool, due to its good area coverage capability and cost effectiveness. Different state electricity boards in INDIA started using GSM facility for fault management and so there is increased demand for this method. For this design, energy meter specifications and tariff structure followed by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) are adopted. In this project the front end is User friendly and any employee with minimum knowledge of computers can work on this software. Employees can read the meter by sitting in their office.
are primarily designed for low power consumption. As they were operating within a short range (power class- dependent: 1 meter, 10 meters, 100 meters) this technique was not effective and implemented only in areas with high population density. So a new approach of using an energy measurement technique that encompasses the GSM network as a mean of transmitting energy data is more relevant. The GSM/GPRS network offers most coverage in most developed and developing countries. This method is also effective in rural areas, which are not densely populated, and in which, most people do not have access to a fixed telephone network. So in a country like India we need to focus more on this method as it can be implemented very easily and effectively. According to the latest report by researcher Gartner India's mobile subscriber base should grow to 993 million by 2014, which expects the world's fastest-growing mobile market to close 2010 with more than 660 million subscribers. India is the second-largest wireless market in the world after China with its 618 million mobile subscribers at end-May, according to data from the country's telecoms regulator. Mobile connections were at 525 million at end of 2009.
A. A lookback at GSM Technology and GSM meter in India. Several transmission protocols in wired/wireless manner were introduced so far to read digital meters remotely at different areas of India. The Digital watt-hour meters are microprocessor based meters which replaced traditional electromechanical meters.
Fig. 2 India-GSM mobile subscribers.
Latest data by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) showed GSM operators had added 6.68 million in November 2012 and the GSM subscriber base was at 632.08 million. GSM operators added 7.55 million new subscribers in December, taking the total GSM user base to 639.64 million in the country, according to the COAI’s data released. Fig.1 Traditional Electromechanical meter Vs Electronic meter .
Tele watt meters were implemented to transmit data on monthly basis to a remote central office through a dedicated telephone line and a pair of modems. A microprocessor/DSP based meter is used in this to measure the electricity consumption of multiple users in a residential area. A master PC at the control centre was used to send commands to a remote meter, which in turn transmitted data back, using the Power Line Communication (PLC) technique. These techniques were mainly implemented in areas that had a fixed telephone network. Bluetooth energy meters were designed and implemented in some areas where several meters in close proximity, communicated wirelessly with a Master PC. These
In this scenario the utilization of existing GSM network for metering in India will be a cost effective method for all class of people. III.
GSM METER - ARCHITECTURE
When developing a technology that might replace one which has been in use for more than thirty years, not only the key issue needs to be addressed, but added functionality and solutions to other obstacles presented by the previous technology need to be addressed. Even existing meter readers and other employers have to accept the quality and effectiveness of the proposed system.
67 The engineering challenge is to develop a product that can serve as wireless system replacement for the metering and billing system currently in use. This emphasis that the meter under development has to work under the old circumstances and perform all the previous functions, but also be a ble to relay the information in a new way and perform additional functions, without the need of replacing all meters on the electrical grid simultaneously. The developed AMR system consists of three main parts: a digital GSM power meter installed in every individual consumer unit, transmission facility (SMS gateway), and billing server at the energy provider side. Overview and functional block details are shown in Fig. 3.
IV.
DETAILED DESIGN
This GSM energy meter is constructed using the microchip single phase dedicated energy metering IC MCP3905A, a display, 8-bit PIC Microcontroller PIC16F877A and GSM modem. A 10A class I single phase meter is designed with embedded GSM modem which utilizes the existing GSM network to send its power usage value as SMS to the energy provider wirelessly. While sending the message each time, the same data is also stored in the associated non-volatile memory (EEPROM). RTC module is also integrated in the meter to have time stamped recording of usage details. The detailed design blocks are shown in Fig. 4 and Configuration of different PIC ports for performing this functionality is demonstrated in Fig.6
Fig. 3 Overview of Proposed System.
The proposed system for energy billing is automatic, do not require human effort to read the meter, consumer can directly know the amount he has to pay at the time of bill preparation itself and can even pay the amount online. Fig.4 Detailed Design Blocks
Fig. 5 Detailed Circuit of energy meter
68 a very small coin cell (3V CMOS battery) which runs continuously even in power failure.
Fig. 6 Configuration of PIC Ports
In the office, the GSM unit will receive these data and software will calculate the total consumption of each user. The design can be discussed as two broad categories, Hardware detailed design and software web portal design. V.
HARDWARE DETAILED DESIGN
In this system the two wire power supply is connected to the energy metering IC through the analog front end of the MCP3905 energy meter evaluation board which provides average active power information via a pulse output which may be then used to be processed by a Micro Controller Unit (MCU). The GSM unit is interfaced to the micro controller via a MAX 232 convertor as in Fig.7 (b). User GSM modem transmits usage details to office modem. Every house/premise has a unique number (consumer number), which is given by the corresponding authority. The detailed circuit of the meter constructed using off the shelf components such as evaluation board (MCP3905A), Microcontroller (PIC16F877) and LCD (20x4) and GSM Modem (Fargo Maestro -20) is shown in Fig.5. At the input prototype area of the evaluation board a 250 μ, 10A meter shunt is connected as current-sensing element. A. Power Supply The microcontroller and other devices get power supply from AC to DC adapter or from direct ac lines through voltage regulator. The adapter output voltage will be 12V DC nonregulated. The 7805 voltage regulators are used to convert 12 V to 5V DC. Circuit details are shown in Fig.7 (a).The low cost DC power supply circuit included in the MCP3905 evaluation board which is created from a half wave zener diode-limited AC signal feeding a 7805 +5V regulator can also be used. B. External EEPROM memory Selected EEPROM is Atmel 24C256.This memory device is used to store the data for off line process. i.e. it stores the amount of unit the user consumed while transferring each SMS. C. Real Time Clock (RTC) This is used to maintain the real time and date in off line processing. RTC counts seconds, minutes, hours, date of the month, month, day of the week, and year with leap-year compensation valid up to 2100.The RTC selected here is DS1307 .It is low cost, easy to solder, and can run for years on
Fig.7 (a) Power supply (b) MAX 232 interfacing.
D. Implementation Details Output pulses from the metering IC are counted using the default timer of PIC MCU. The signal from meter through Octocoupler is normally high (5V) and the high to low transition of this voltage wave indicates the occurrence of a pulse. The counting of low pulse is an inefficient method as improper grounding issues may even be counted as a pulse by the device. So the produced pulse is reversed before applying to the counter. A TTL compatible inverter circuit is used for this purpose. The microcontroller is programmed to read data from the metering IC every second. When microcontroller reads the power consumption, it is stored and current reading is incremented in its software. In this design meter is calibrated such that for 1 unit of energy (kWh) consumption, it generates 3200 pulses in LED. (It can be calibrated for a meter constant of 1000 imp/kWh or 100 imp/kWh or 32000 imp/kWh etc as per the requirement). Energy per count, Epc = ( I max X V rms)/3200.
(1)
Where Imax is the maximum load current and Vrms is the RMS voltage. Energy per LED pulse, Epp =1000 X 3600/ Mpr.
(2)
where Mpr is the pulse rate of the meter in impulse/ kWh. Practical set up created for transmitter prototype developed using the meter circuit of Fig .5 is shown below in Fig.8.A variable load set up is connected and usage is measured.
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Fig.10 GSM Meter after casing and sample results on display.
B. Billing Software
Fig.8. Transmitter prototype.
PCB layout for the meter routed with the aid of Cadence Orcad 9.2 suite and corresponding printed board are shown in Fig.9.Mechanical design and assembly of the developed meter is shown in Fig.10.The device has a plastic enclosure. It has less weight and easy to handle. For status indication, a green LED is placed in front side. 20x4 LCD display is there on the top of the meter to display the reading and RTC time date information. Push button switches are provided to read EEPROM content.
A web oriented GUI designed especially for e-billing, manages all received SMS readings, updates the database regularly, computes the monthly bill amount, and notify the consumer his bill details through SMS. It also publishes the bill in the designed web portal and consumer can log for getting the usage details any time. Printed postal mails can also be provided for respective consumer. Authority can log for bill preparation and analysis of any collected data. Information portal helps to assist the smart meter to log consumption data to the database. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 IDE is used to develop the web portal. Data base used is Microsoft SQL Server2005 (Fig. 11).
Fig.11 Database d etails.
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2008 provide an integrated development environment (IDE) for maximizing developer productivity with the .NET framework. It is used to develop VI. SOFTWARE DETAILED DESIGN console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and A. Microcontroller software design web services in both native code together with managed code All software used for the PIC16F877 in the control circuitry for all platforms supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows was developed in Mikroelektronika’s MikroC PRO 4.15 IDE. Mobile, Windows CE, .NET framework, .NET Compact The meter PIC MCU is programmed via the In-System framework and Microsoft Silverlight. In this application source Programming (ISP) interface. PICkit 2 v 2.61 is used for code is written in C#. The .NET version of C# is an programming the target PIC. GSM modem is controlled by improved version with more features and additions. The using AT command for all kinds of operations.The algorithm developed site can be checked by running locally on any PC for meter were developed by considering all the required using ASP.net development server local host. Designed home outputs. The brain of the meter is this developed firmware. It page of the web portal is shown in Fig.12. It can be hosted to can be modified and updated any time, even in the field. The firmware is written in embedded C. Fig.9. Orcad layout and printed PCB.
70 the server for practical use, once hosted the user can access it from anywhere through internet.
Fig.12 Home page
Users are categorized as administrator, staff and consumer. Any user can log using the user login option available in the web site as shown below in Fig.13. Administrator can perform category registration, section addition, tariff updates, staff registration and message setting. After the initial login the administrator can connect the GSM modem to the web portal through serial port / USB. Initially required hardware configurations have to done for the modem setup. Then by selecting the corresponding port administrator can connect it to the system for accepting SMS from meter.
Fig.13 User login, Category r egistration, Port setting, Tariff table updating.
Once it is connected it will remain as connected for the whole system and continues receiving SMS till the administrator disconnects it using the disconnect option. Different staff members under the administrator are registered using the member registration option provided to the administrator. These operations are demonstrated in Fig. 13. The registered staffs are assigned to a particular section and they are registering the consumers under them. Registered staff member can login and add any number of consumers under his section. Also he is responsible for preparing the bills of consumers under him. By simple selection of consumer name and month, automatic bill generation occurs by auto processing of the background data.
VII.
R ESULTS
Designed meter is able to send the usage value at a predefined time and the status is displayed in LCD for the next 5 minutes after sending, as shown above in Fig. 10.
Fig.14 Generated Bill.
Example of the prepared bill by a staff member is shown in Fig.14.Consumer can login to view this bill. By selecting a particular month he can view his usage history any time.
Fig.15 Consumer registration example and SMS reception in that consumer’s phone.
The consolidated bill prepared sent to the users mobile, for a particular month of usage, for a particular consumer is depicted in Fig.15. Prepared Bill is successfully sent back to the registered consumer at the time of bill generation itself. Backend database details and HTML source code details can be accessed anytime by the administrator. VIII. CONCLUSION Various electronic meters have been developed and are still being developed. However the use of GSM in this particular system provides numerous advantages over methods that have been previously used. Data transmission is charged at standard SMS rates, thus the charges are not based on the duration of data transmission. The cost efficient transmission of readings
71 ensures that power consumption values can be transmitted more frequently to a remote station. The implications of being able to transmit readings more often are that energy utilities will be able to generate timely bills, better understand energy demand patterns, manage meter failures more efficiently and manage fraud better. The developed system is highly effective in the sense it is able to eliminate the drawback of serial communication. i.e even though it lacks acknowledgement of the sent SMS it is not affecting system performance. If a message is missing then also as the system is accepting the cumulative value next time which includes the lost content. And while preparing bill the system is accepting the maximum consumption value. These implementations make the designed system unique and effective compared to the previous proposals. The system also poses much less of a safety risk since human interaction has been minimized. The generated bill is available as SMS at the time of generation itself and hard copies are available to the consumer as postal mail. A soft copy can be send to the consumers e-mail if consumer is registered with his e-mail address .The same idea can be expanded to water and gas meter reading system by proper modification. The designed web portal options can be added to the existing web page of any energy provider worldwide and it can be hosted for public. The system can be modified by using latest SPI metering ICs which will provide more parameters. By using the Microchip three phase IC MCP3909 the same idea can be extended to three phase systems also. Power factor improvement options can be added in future. By adding an initialization message option at the time of installation the meter time can be updated from the server. If energy provider
is willing to add online payment options in the hosted web page, instant payment by the consumer from anywhere in the world is also possible.
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