System, method, and apparatus for a safe powerline communications instrumentation front-end

• US 8,773,108 B2
• Filed: 11/10/2010
• Issued: 07/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Power Monitors, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Power Monitors, Inc.
• Inventors: Curt, Walter, Mullins, Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, VINH P
• Application Number:
  US12/943,493
• Publication Number:
  US 20110109320A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,336 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 324/76.11
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 1/30 Structural combination of electric measuring instruments with basic electronic circuits, e.g. with amplifier
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 2203/5495 having measurements and testing channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 3/546 Combination of signalling, telemetering, protection circuits for remote indication of supply or distribution network condition H02J13/00

Abstract

A safe powerline communications instrumentation front end device including a voltage input for receiving a line voltage from a powerline, a voltage reducer for reducing the voltage of the line voltage, a filtering system for extracting a Power Line Communications (PLC) signal from the line voltage, and an analog output for outputting the PLC signal as an analog signal for communications test equipment.

Claims

1. A method for testing and analyzing PLC systems using a safe powerline communications instrumentation front end device comprising:

receiving a line voltage;

reducing the voltage of the line voltage;

extracting PLC signals from the line voltage; and

outputting the PLC signals as analog signals for communications test equipment, wherein extracting PLC signals comprises;

converting the line voltage to digital samples with an A/D converter;

pre-processing the digital samples with an FPGA;

processing the digital samples with a DSP;

post-processing the digital samples with the FPGA; and

converting the digital samples post-processed by the FPGA to an analog signal

with a D/A converter.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

converting the PLC signals to audio signals; and

outputting the audio signals from an audio output.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing polyphase transformations on the PLC signals.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing time domain masking on the PLC signals by selecting a pre-determined portion of the waveform and zeroing-out samples outside the pre-determined portion.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

performing time warping on the PLC signals by creating a continuous time series out of only the pre-determined portions of the waveform.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

superimposing a marker on the analog signals using the DSP by replacing samples at applicable spots with large values.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

outputting a previously recorded or a generated synthetic waveform for comparison to the analog signals.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

time buffering at least one of the line voltage, the PLC signals, and the analog signals by streaming the values to a memory buffer in the front end device allowing a user to pause, rewind, and replay signals.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

pausing at least one of the line voltage, the PLC signals, and the analog signals.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recording at least one of the line voltage, the PLC signals, and the analog signals.