Method and apparatus for circuit breaker node software architecture

• US 20030187520A1
• Filed: 02/25/2003
• Published: 10/02/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Premerlani, William James, Berkcan, Ertugrul, Andarawis, Emad Andarawis, Schnore, Austars Raymond Jr., Pearlman, Marc Robert
• Application Number:
  US10/373,677
• Publication Number:
  US 20030187520A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/12 Synchronisation of different clock signals provided by a plurality of clock generators
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/05 Digital input using the sampling of an analogue quantity at regular intervals of time , input from a/d converter or output to d/a converter
• CPC Class Codes: H01H 2300/03 Application domotique, e.g. for house automation, bus connected switches, sensors, loads or intelligent wiring
• CPC Class Codes: H01H 83/20 operated by excess current as well as by some other abnormal electrical condition
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 1/0061 concerning transmission of signals transmission of measured quantities or switching orders; sectionalised protection involving signal transmission between at least two stations H02H7/261; comparison of the voltage or current values at two spaced portions of a single system H02H3/28; transferring the output of a sensing member to another variable G01D5/00; electrical measuring arrangements using modulation of electromagnetic waves, e.g. light beams G01R15/24, G01R15/26
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 3/006 Calibration or setting of parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 3/05 with means for increasing reliability, e.g. redundancy arrangements for logic circuits H03K19/003
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 7/261 involving signal transmission between at least two stations transmission of signals in general H02H1/0061
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 7/262 involving transmissions of switching or blocking orders
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 7/263 involving transmissions of measured values comparison of currents or voltages using pilot wires H02H3/30
• CPC Class Codes: H02H 7/30 Staggered disconnection
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00001 characterised by the display of information or by user interaction, e.g. supervisory control and data acquisition systems [SCADA] or graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00007 using the power network as support for the transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00009 using pulsed signals
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00012 using an auxiliary transmission line
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00016 using a wired telecommunication network or a data transmission bus
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00018 using phone lines
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00028 involving the use of Internet protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00034 the elements or equipment being or involving an electric power substation
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00036 the elements or equipment being or involving switches, relays or circuit breakers circuits for indication of single switches H01H9/167
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/0004 : involved in a protection system
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2203/20 : Simulating, e g planning, reliability check, modelling or computer assisted design [CAD]
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/64 : The condition being economic, e.g. tariff based load management
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/00 : Circuit arrangements for ac mains or ac distribution networks
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/001 : Methods to deal with contingencies, e.g. abnormalities, faults or failures
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/007 : Arrangements for selectively connecting the load or loads to one or several among a plurality of power lines or power sources for providing uninterruptable power supply H02J9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/12 : for adjusting voltage in ac networks by changing a characteristic of the network load
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0658 : Clock or time synchronisation among packet nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0661 : using timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0002 : by adapting the transmission rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0018 : based on latency requirement
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0253 : using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 : Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 : Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 : by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 : Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/30 : Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for improving the carbon footprint of the management of residential or tertiary loads, i.e. smart grids as climate change mitigation technology in the buildings sector, including also the last stages of power distribution and the control, monitoring or operating management systems at local level
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/3225 : Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 90/20 : Smart grids as enabling technology in buildings sector smart grids supporting the management or operation of end-user stationary applications in general, or like technologies with no associated climate change mitigation effect Y04S20/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 : in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 80/10 : Efficient use of energy, e.g. using compressed air or pressurized fluid as energy carrier
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 10/40 : Display of information, e.g. of data or controls
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/14 : Protecting elements, switches, relays or circuit breakers
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/20 : End-user application control systems
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/222 : Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/00 : Systems for electrical power generation, transmission, distribution or end-user application management characterised by the use of communication or information technologies, or communication or information technology specific aspects supporting them
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/121 : using the power network as support for the transmission
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/124 : using wired telecommunication networks or data transmission busses
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 50/10 : Energy trading, including energy flowing from end-user application to grid

Abstract

A method and apparatus for operating a centrally controlled power distribution system is provided. The power distribution system includes a plurality of circuit breakers, each circuit breaker coupled to a single node electronics unit, the node electronics unit includes a plurality of processors and a memory, and the node electronics unit is communicatively coupled to at least one central control processing unit through an associated network. The method includes triggering a first node electronics unit process with a processor interrupt, and triggering a second node electronics unit process with at least one of a background polling of process execution flags and scheduled processor interrupts. The apparatus includes a software program code segment configured to trigger a first node electronics unit process with a processor interrupt, and trigger a second node electronics unit process with at least one of a background polling of process execution flags and scheduled processor interrupts.

Claims

1. A method for operating a power distribution system comprising:

interrupting a first process of a node electronics unit with a processor interrupt signal; and

initiating a second process of said node electronics unit with a polling process.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein interrupting of said first process comprises:

interrupting said first process with at least one signal selected from the group consisting of;

an internal processor interrupt signal and an external processor interrupt signal; and

servicing the processor interrupt signal with an interrupt handler executing on the node electronics unit.

3. A method in accordance with claim 2 wherein interrupting said first process comprises triggering at least one of recording a local time of an arriving message packet, initiating an A/D converter data sampling and a timer reset, and enabling data sample collection.

4. A method in accordance with claim 3 wherein recording said local time comprises receiving an arriving message packet from a communication interface interrupt.

5. A method in accordance with claim 3 wherein initiating said A/D converter data sampling and timer reset comprises receiving a timer expiration interrupt.

6. A method in accordance with claim 3 wherein enabling said data sample collection comprises receiving an A/D converter data ready interrupt.

7. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein initiating said second process comprises:

setting at least one process execution flag;

polling said at least one process execution flag when a processor interrupt handler is not executing; and

triggering a low priority process with said at least one process execution flag.

8. A method in accordance with claim 1 further comprising setting a follow-on process execution flag to enable execution of a follow-on process.

9. A method in accordance with claim 1 further comprising:

handling interrupts using an operating system; and

scheduling processes using the operating system.

10. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein initiating a second process of said node electronics unit with a polling process further comprises triggering at least one process selected from the group consisting of decoding of received messages and executing received message commands, evaluating communication channel health, conducting a node electronics unit self-evaluation, reading data samples from a node electronics unit A/D converter, executing local protection, logging diagnostic history, logging event history, reading circuit breaker status, reading node identification, determining identification of systems units, updating system unit identification, executing a synchronization routine, adaptively modifying node electronics unit parameters and process execution, and transmitting node electronics unit information to the central control processing unit.

11. A method in accordance with claim 10 wherein said process of adaptively modifying node electronics unit parameters and process execution further comprises adaptively modifying node electronics unit parameters and process execution based on at least one selected from the groups consisting of:

system resources, a communication network noise level, a data signal-to-noise ratio, a change in a number of network nodes, a communication channel utilization, a change of authorization of parameters, service requested data, and a change command received from at least one of a remote controller and an external processor.

12. A method in accordance with claim 11 wherein adaptively modifying node electronics unit parameters and process execution based on service requested data further comprises adaptively modifying node electronics unit parameters and process execution based on at least one selected from the group consisting of:

system status data, local status data, local health data, communication network data, a data signal-to-noise ratio, event history, and error history.

13. A method in accordance with claim 10 wherein adaptively modifying node electronics unit parameters further comprises adaptively modifying at least one selected from the group consisting of:

a local protection function parameter, a communication parameter, a sampling parameter, a diagnostic parameter, and a calibration parameter.

14. A method in accordance with claim 10 wherein adaptively modifying node electronics unit process execution further comprises at least one selected from the groups consisting of:

adaptively modifying a condition for triggering a process, adding a new trigger, replacing an existing trigger, replacing an existing process with an alternate process, adding a new process, removing an existing process.

15. A method in accordance with claim 14 replacing an existing process with an alternate process further comprises replacing an existing process with a process resident in the node and a process description received from a remote source wherein a remote source includes at least one selected from the groups consisting of a remote processor, a remote controller, a manual entry, an external process server, an external code server, a storage media, and wherein a process description includes at least one of binary executable, compilable source code, interpretable source code, and references to resident code blocks.

16. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein at least one of the plurality of processors is configured to operate at a first power consumption and to operate at a second, reduced power consumption wherein the power consumption of each configured processor operating at the first power consumption is greater than the power consumption of each configured processor operating at the second power consumption, and wherein the method further comprises operating at least one processor at a reduced power consumption.

17. A method in accordance with claim 16 wherein a first processor is programmed to operate as a primary processor and a second processor is programmed to operate as a secondary processor and wherein the method further comprises:

communicating a status of the secondary processor to the primary processor if power to the node electronics unit is available;

receiving at least one of commands, parameters, status information, and health information from the primary processor; and

reporting at least one of secondary processor status, a secondary processor health, and a secondary processor event to the primary processor.

18. A method in accordance with claim 16 wherein at least one processor is programmed to execute a watchdog timer function, the method further comprising:

generating a first signal;

transmitting the first signal to at least one other processor;

receiving a second signal from another processor; and

determining a health of the other processor based on the second signal.

19. A method in accordance with claim 16 wherein at least one processor is programmed to execute a power supply monitoring function and wherein the method further comprises:

logging power supply events;

determining a health of the power supply; and

transmitting commands based on the determined health.

20. A method in accordance with claim 19 further comprising:

writing power supply status data to a nonvolatile memory;

executing a reduced instruction set to conserve power; and

transferring processing control to a processor operating at reduced power consumption.

21. A method in accordance with claim 16 wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to execute a backup protection function when operating at reduced power consumption and wherein the method further comprises executing the backup protection function using analog signal processing.

22. A method in accordance with claim 21 wherein the processor includes an integrator, a differentiator, an amplifier, a comparator, a voltage reference and a current reference for processing analog input signals and wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an analog signal from a source; and

processing the analog signal using at least one of the integrator, the differentiator, the amplifier, the comparator, the voltage reference and the current reference.

23. A system for operating a power distribution system comprising:

means for interrupting a first process of a node electronics unit with a processor interrupt signal; and

means for initiating a second process of said node electronics unit with a polling process.

24. A system in accordance with claim 23 further comprising:

means for interrupting said first process with at least one signal selected from the group consisting of;

an internal processor interrupt signal and an external processor interrupt signal; and

means for servicing the processor interrupt signal with an interrupt handler executing on the node electronics unit.

25. A system in accordance with claim 24 wherein means for interrupting said first process comprises means for triggering at least one of recording a local time of an arriving message packet, initiating an A/D converter data sampling and a timer reset, and enabling data sample collection.

26. A system in accordance with claim 25 wherein recording said local time comprises receiving an arriving message packet from a communication interface interrupt.

27. A system in accordance with claim 25 wherein recording said local time comprises receiving an arriving message packet from a communication interface interrupt.

28. A system in accordance with claim 25 wherein initiating said A/D converter data sampling and timer reset comprises receiving a timer expiration interrupt.

29. A system in accordance with claim 23 means for initiating said second process comprises:

means for setting at least one process execution flag;

means for polling said at least one process execution flag when a processor interrupt handler is not executing; and

means for triggering a low priority process with said at least one process execution flag.

30. A system in accordance with claim 29 further comprising means for triggering at least one process selected from the group consisting of:

decoding of received messages and execution of received message commands, evaluation of communication channel health, reading of data samples from a node electronics unit A/D converter, and transmission of node electronics unit information to said central control processing unit.

31. A system in accordance with claim 23 further comprising means for setting a follow-on process execution flag to enable execution of a follow-on process.

32. A system for operating power distribution system comprising:

interrupting a first process of a node electronics unit with a processor interrupt signal;

means for servicing the processor interrupt signal with an interrupt handler executing on the node electronics unit and

initiating a second process of said node electronics unit with a polling process.