Multichannel intelligent electronic device with advanced communication capabilities

• US 20080158008A1
• Filed: 03/19/2008
• Published: 07/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: EI Electronics LLC (Hubbell, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Electro Industries/Gaugetech
• Inventors: Wang, Wei, Kagan, Erran, Kagan, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 9,379,907 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/870.05
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 4/004 Remote reading of utility meters to a fixed location
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• 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: Y04S 20/30 Smart metering, e.g. specially adapted for remote reading

Abstract

An intelligent electronic device (IED) for monitoring/measuring parameters of electrical services to a plurality of loads and receiving/transmitting information over communication networks is disclosed. The electrical services may be connected to the same or different AC services. The IED may be configured as a terminal or a server of an Intranet, LAN, WAN, or the Internet. In one application, these techniques are implemented in IEDs such as digital electrical power and energy meters.

Claims

1. An intelligent electronic device for measuring or calculating parameters of a plurality of electrical services, comprising:

at least one metering module coupled to each of the plurality of electrical services and metering module configured for measuring or calculating parameters of the electrical services, wherein said electrical service include at least one of a single phase, dual phase or three phase system;

a processing module coupled to each of the at least one metering module and configured for administering operation of the device and processing data obtained from each at least one metering module;

a user interface unit adapted for displaying data and configuring settings of the device; and

a communication module configured for transmitting outgoing data to and receiving incoming data from terminals of a communication network.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one metering module includes at least ten input channels.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein the parameters are selected from the group consisting of a line voltage, a line current, a phase voltage, a phase current, and a total harmonic distortion (THD) or a root mean square (RMS) value thereof;

energy, real power, reactive power, total power, and power factor.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein the outgoing and incoming data is formatted in compliance with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTML), Modbus TCP, the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or the Extensive Markup Language (XML) Protocol.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein each of the at least one metering module includes a multiplexer for multiplexing voltage and current inputs.

6. The device of claim 5, wherein said multiplexed voltage and current inputs are configurable using the user interface unit.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein the processing module further comprises a billing module adapted to generate customized bills to users of the plurality of electrical services.

8. The device of claim 7, wherein the customized bills may be emailed to a user over the communication network.

9. The device of claim 1, wherein the communication module is further configured to communicate wirelessly to voltage and current sensors of said electrical services.

10. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is configured to operate as a server or a terminal of an Intranet, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or the Internet.

11. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is additionally compliant with at least one of RS232, Universal Serial Bus (USB) or RS-485 communication architectures.

12. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is configured for transmitting and receiving email messages.

13. The device of claim 1, wherein the outgoing data comprises at least one of raw or systemized data, alarms, text/symbolic messages, charts, and bar graphs.

14. The device of claim 1, wherein the incoming data comprises at least one of device'"'"'s configuration settings or requests for device'"'"'s data or status information.

15. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is configured for simultaneously communicating with a plurality of the terminals of the communication network.

16. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is one of a digital electrical power and energy meter, a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), a Remote Terminal Unit, a protective relay, or a fault recorder.

17. A method of operating an intelligent electronic device, comprising:

measuring or calculating parameters of a plurality of single phase, dual phase or three phase electrical services using at least one analog to digital converter; and

transmitting the outgoing information to and receiving incoming information from terminals of a communication network via Ethernet TCP/IP protocol.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein of the measuring step is performed on a minimum of 10 input channels simultaneously.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein any Ethernet communication utilizes encrypted communication.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the parameters are selected from the group consisting of a line voltage, a line current, a phase voltage, a phase current, and a total harmonic distortion (THD) or a root mean square (RMS) value thereof;

energy, real power, reactive power, total power, and power factor.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein the outgoing and incoming information is formatted in compliance with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTML), Modbus TCP, the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or the Extensive Markup Language (XML) Protocol.

22. The method of claim 17, further comprising multiplexing voltage and current inputs from a plurality of sources for the measuring thereof.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein said multiplexed voltage and current inputs are configurable via the user interface unit to accommodate a new input wiring scheme.

24. The method of claim 17, further comprising generating customized bills for users of the plurality of electrical services.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising emailing the customized bills to the users.

26. The method of claim 17, wherein the outgoing and incoming information is exchanged by transmitting and receiving email messages.

27. The method of claim 17, wherein the intelligent electronic device is one of a digital electrical energy meter, a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), a Remote Terminal Unit, a protective relay, or a fault recorder.

28. A digital electrical power and energy meter, comprising:

a processing module configured for administering operation of the meter; and

a communication module configured for transmitting outgoing information to and receiving incoming information from terminals of a communication network, wherein the meter includes

a memory containing codes of programs providing operability of the meter; and

a processor executing these codes to perform (i) measuring or calculating parameters of a plurality of electrical services connected to power supply lines of one AC service or to power supply lines of a plurality of independent AC services, and (ii) configuring the meter to operate as a server or a terminal of the communication network.

29. The meter of claim 28, wherein the plurality of electrical services includes electrical services to at least eight loads each selectively coupled to the power supply lines of the AC service.

30. The meter of claim 29, wherein said parameters correspond to or derived from up to three phase/line voltages and up to 24 phase/line currents of said loads.

31. The meter of claim 28, wherein the plurality of electrical services includes electrical services to at least eight loads selectively connected to the power supply lines of two or more independent AC services.

32. The meter of claim 28, wherein the AC service and at least one of the independent AC services is a 3-phase AC service.

33. The meter of claim 28, wherein the parameters are selected from the group consisting of a line voltage, a line current, a phase voltage, a phase current, and a total harmonic distortion (THD) or a root mean square (RMS) value thereof;

energy, revenue, real power, reactive power, total power, and a power factor.

34. The meter of claim 28, wherein the metering module comprises a plurality of multi channel processors each simultaneously measuring in real time parameters of up to 6 voltage and current waveforms.

35. The meter of claim 28, wherein the metering module comprises one of (i) a multiplexer for multiplexing signals corresponding to waveforms at voltage inputs and current inputs of said device, and (ii) multiplexers for selective multiplexing the signals corresponding to waveforms at the voltage inputs or at the current inputs.

36. The meter of claim 35, wherein said multiplexed voltage and current inputs are configurable via the user interface unit.

37. The meter of claim 36, wherein said multiplexed voltage and current inputs are configurable using a touch-screen display of the user interface unit.

38. The meter of claim 28, wherein the memory comprises a code of a billing module adapted to generate customized bills to users of the plurality of electrical services.

39. The meter of claim 28, wherein the communication module is further configured to communicate wirelessly to voltage and current sensors of said electrical services.

40. The meter of claim 28, wherein said meter is configured to operate as the server or the terminal of an Intranet, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or the Internet.

41. The meter of claim 28, wherein said meter is configured to be compliant with at least one of the TCP/IP and 10/100Base-T Ethernet communication protocols.

42. The meter of claim 28, wherein said meter is configured to be compliant with at least one of the Modbus/TCP, Modbus, DNP 3.0, and RS-485 communication protocols.

43. The meter of claim 28, wherein said meter is configured for transmitting and receiving email messages.

44. The meter of claim 28, wherein the outgoing and incoming information is formatted in compliance with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTML), the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or the Extensive Markup Language (XML) Protocol.

45. The meter of claim 28, wherein the outgoing information comprises at least one of raw or systemized data, alarms, text/symbolic messages, charts, and bar graphs, and the incoming information comprises at least one of device'"'"'s configuration settings or requests for device'"'"'s data or status information.

46. The meter of claim 28, wherein said meter is configured for simultaneously communicating with a plurality of the terminals of the communication network.