CONTROL SYSTEM AND METHOD OF COMMUNICATIONS IN AN ELECTRIC INFRASTRUCTURE

• US 20170187237A1
• Filed: 12/16/2016
• Published: 06/29/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Schneider Electric Industries SAS (Schneider Electric SE)
• Original Assignee: Schneider Electric Industries SAS (Schneider Electric SE)
• Inventors: VERNEAU, Guillaume, MESSAGE THEBAUDEAU, Laetitia, BERTON, Julien, LANSOY, Mathieu
• Granted Patent: US 10,177,597 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0206 in access points, e.g. base stations access point devices per se H04W88/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0245 according to signal strength
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/00 Enabling technologies; Technologies with a potential or indirect contribution to GHG emissions mitigation
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/126 using wireless data transmission

Abstract

A method and a system of control of power consumption of communications between electrical modules of an electrical infrastructure, including a star-shaped communication network between a central module, or master module, and a set of slave modules, the master module being set up to be connected to the slave modules by non-wireline communications links in a star pattern, and a processing circuit set up to regulate the power levels of communications links at least in a direction of reception by the master module from at least one slave module or by at least one slave module from the master module.

Claims

1. A method of control of power consumption of communications between nodes of an intra-substation or an inter-substations communication network of an electrical infrastructure, the nodes of an intra-substation communication network being formed by electrical equipment within the substation, the nodes of an inter-substations communication network being formed by the substations themselves, a node belonging to an intra-substation or an inter-substations communication network being called an electrical module, wherein the method comprises the following steps:

definition of a star-shaped communication network by partitioning the electrical modules between a central module, called master module, and a set of slave modules, the master module being set up to be connected to the slave modules by non-wireline communications links in star pattern, and

regulation of the power levels of communications links at least in a direction of reception by the master module from at least one slave module or by at least one slave module from the master module, said regulation of the power levels being processed according to a generic process modelling the communications links.

2. The method according to claim 1, said method further comprising regulating the power levels of communications links in a direction of transmission from the master module to at least one slave module or from at least one slave module to the master module.

3. The method according to claim 2, comprising the following steps:

regulation of the power levels in the direction of transmission from the master module to each slave module,

regulation of the power levels in the direction of reception of the master module from each slave module,

regulation of the power levels in the direction of transmission from each slave module to the master module, and

regulation of the power levels in the direction of reception of each slave module from the master module.

4. The method according to claim 1, comprising a modelling of communications links by ordered triplets each comprised of a first component indicating the direction of the communications link, and second and third components indicating the starting point and arrival point of the communications link in the forward order or in the inverse order according to whether the direction of communication assigned by the first component is respectively a transmission or a reception.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the regulation of the power level of a generic communications link identified by a first triplet having for its components a first direction of the communications link, a first electrical module, and a second electrical module, is realized according to a generic process comprising the following steps:

definition of a second triplet having as its first component a second direction of the communications link opposite said first direction, as its second component said second electrical module, and as its third component said first electrical module,

testing in iterative fashion an operating state of the communications link as a function of the first and second current values of regulation of power levels pertaining respectively to said first and second triplets while decrementing for each iteration a counter associated with the current value of regulation pertaining to the first triplet, said counter being initialized at a maximum power level value,

saving the first and second current values of regulation of operational power levels,

saving a set of functional regulation pairs pertaining to the first triplet, each current pair of functional regulation being composed of said first and second current values of regulation of operational power levels.

6. The method according to claim 5, comprising saving of a power consumption configuration according to a strategy aiming to optimize the power consumption of the first module or the second module or the least power-hungry of said first and second modules.

7. The method according to claim 5, comprising a failure analysis of a communication in the event of a malfunctioning of the communications link.

8. The method according to claim 5, comprising a regulation in broadcast mode comprising selecting, from among the functional pairs associated with the communications links, the maximum level of transmission from the master module to each of the slave modules, as well as the maximum level of reception of the master module from each of the slave modules.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control of power consumption of said master module and said slave modules is carried out after a predetermined event or during a critical situation.

10. A system of control of power consumption of communications between electrical modules of an electrical infrastructure, comprising:

a star-shaped communication network between a central module, called master module, and a set of slave modules, the master module being set up to be connected to the slave modules by non-wireline communications links in a star pattern, and

a processing circuit set up to implement the control method according to claim 1.

11. The system according to claim 10, wherein the star-shaped communication network is an internal network composed of equipment within the same substation among which a central equipment unit is set up to play the role of the master module while the other equipment units are set up to play the roles of the slave modules.

12. The system according to claim 10, wherein the star-shaped communication network is an external network composed of a set of electrical substations among which a central substation, or command centre, is set up to play the role of the master module while the other substations are set up to play the roles of the slave modules.

13. An electrical infrastructure comprising the system according to claim 10.