Near field communications for utility meters

• US 9,472,093 B2
• Filed: 12/17/2012
• Issued: 10/18/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Itron Global Sarl (Itron, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Itron, Inc.
• Inventors: Popa, Daniel, Saleem, Dhia, Borisov, Vladimir
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Benjamin C
• Assistant Examiner(s): DARAMOLA, ISRAEL O
• Application Number:
  US13/717,537
• Publication Number:
  US 20140167978A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,401 Days
• Field of Search: 340/870.02, 340/572.1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 4/006 Remote reading of utility meters to a non-fixed location, i.e. mobile location
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 17/02 using a radio link
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/604 Address structures or formats
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/659 Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/681 using addresses for wireless personal area networks or wireless sensor networks, e.g. Zigbee addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5092 by self-assignment, e.g. picking addresses at random and testing if they are already in use
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/065 using assembly or disassembly of packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• 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

Techniques for utilizing near field communications (NFC) with utility meters are described herein. In one example, a meter is configured for operation, either in a stand-alone or utility network capacity. The example meter may include a processor in communication with a memory device and a tag device configured for near field communication (NFC). In operation, the processor operates the tag device to read from the memory device to obtain data for transmission via NFC and/or write data obtained via NFC to the memory device.

Claims

1. A utility meter, comprising:

a processor;

a memory device, in communication with the processor; and

an NFC (near field communication) tag device to communicate using NFC, wherein the utility meter is configured for communication with an NFC tag reader using NFC by;

utilizing a Near Field Communication Internet Protocol (NFCIP) data link-layer to format data including utility meter reading data for transmission by NFC; and

adapting an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) layer to an 802.15.4 link-layer by a Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks version 6 (6LowPAN) layer to provide link-layer frame payload limits and link-layer address sizes, and to transport the IPv6 layer on top of the NFCIP link-layer by using the 6LowPAN layer between the NFCIP data link-layer and the IPv6 layer, the adapting comprising;

setting a number of octets in an NFCIP data link-layer address to zero, and

setting each of a remaining number of octets in the NFCIP data link-layer address to a randomly generated value, so that the NFCIP data link-layer address is compressed down to an address length of a 802.15.4 link-layer address length;

wherein operation of the processor operates the NFC tag device to;

read from the memory device to obtain data including utility meter reading data for transmission via NFC to the NFC tag reader; and

selectively write data obtained from the NFC tag reader via NFC to the memory device.

2. The utility meter as recited in claim 1, wherein:

operation of the processor writes a firmware update to the memory device; and

the firmware update was obtained through the NFC tag device using NFC.

3. The utility meter as recited in claim. 1, additionally comprising:

metrology circuitry to measure electric current and/or electric power consumption;

wherein the NFC tag device is active and the utility meter is utilized as a target device.

4. The utility meter as recited in claim 1, additionally comprising:

metrology circuitry to measure gas or water consumption; and

battery power to power the metrology circuitry.

5. The utility meter as recited in claim 1, wherein:

the 6LowPAN layer reconciles differences in supported packet size among layers by compressing data or segmenting data.

6. The utility meter as recited in claim 1, wherein:

applications executed by the processor and using NFCIP packets are constrained to limit a size of Ipv6 packets and 6LowPAN headers to at most 255 octets.

7. The utility meter as recited in claim 1, further comprising a metering application, stored in memory and executable by the processor, wherein:

the metering application is operable on top of Transmission Control Protocol/User Datagram Protocol (TCP/UDP), TCP/UDP runs on top of Ipv6;

Ipv6 runs on top of 6LowPAN; and

6LowPAN runs on top of NFCIP, wherein 6LowPAN reconciles differences in packet size between Ipv6 and NFCIP.

8. The utility meter as recited in claim 1, wherein applications executed on the utility meter are limited to packet sizes of at most a least size prescribed by any software or any firmware layer.

9. The utility meter as recited in claim 1, wherein communication using NFC comprises:

presenting an NFCIP link-layer address to the 6LowPAN layer; and

eliding a number of octets of zeros from the NFCIP link-layer address, wherein the number of octets of zeros elided is based on a length of the NFCIP link-layer address.

10. A block of meters, comprising:

a plurality of utility meters, wherein each utility meter in the plurality of utility meters comprises;

the utility meter recited in claim 1; and

metrology circuitry in communication with the processor; and

a primary utility meter, in NFC with each of the plurality of utility meters, to maintain a virtual meter associated with each of the plurality of utility meters, each virtual meter to include metrology information obtained from one of the plurality of utility meters over NFC.

11. A unit to communicate with a utility meter, comprising:

a processor;

a memory device, in communication with the processor;

a tag reader device, to communicate using near field communication (NFC) with a tag device of the utility meter, configured as an active device and to play a role of initiator of NFC communication with the tag device, wherein the communication uses near field communication Internet Protocol (NFCIP) that comprises constraining applications executed by the processor and using NFCIP packets to limit Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) layer packets and Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks version 6 (6LowPAN) later headers;

wherein the processor operates the tag reader device to;

read from the memory device to obtain data for transmission to the tag device via NFC; and

selectively write to the memory data including utility meter reading data obtained from the tag device via NFC;

wherein the tag reader device is configured for communication with the tag device using NFC by;

utilizing the Near Field Communication Internet Protocol (NFCIP) layer to format data for transmission by NFC; and

adapting the IPv6 layer to 802.15.4 link-layer by the 6LowPan layer to provide link-layer frame payload limits and link-layer address sizes, and to transport IPv6 layer on top of the NFCIP layer by using a 6LowPAN layer between the NFCIP data link-layer and the Ipv6 layer, comprising;

setting a number of octets in an NFCIP link layer address to zero, and

setting each of a remaining number of octets in the NFCIP link-layer address to a randomly generated value, so that the INFCIP link-layer address is compressed down to an address length of an 802.15.4 link-layer address length.

12. The unit as recited in claim 11, wherein the processor operates the tag device to:

provide network configuration management information to a utility meter on a network.

13. The unit as recited in claim 11, wherein the communication using NFC comprises:

operating of a plurality of protocol layers; and

adjusting of an address in one layer of the protocol layers to conform to requirements in another layer of the protocol layers.

14. A method to perform near field communications (NFC) from an NFC tag initiator, comprising:

activating an RF field by the NFC tag initiator;

activating NFC protocol;

sending a request using the NFC protocol and the RF field to an NFC tag for information response, by;

utilizing a Near Field Communication Internet Protocol (NFCIP) layer to format the request for transmission to the NFC tag by NFC;

adapting an Internet Protocol version 6 (Ipv6) layer to 802.15.4 link-layer by a Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks Version 6 (6LowPan) layer to provide link-layer frame payload limits and link-layer address sizes, and to transport the Ipv6 layer on top of the Near Field Communication (NFC) protocol of the request by using the 6LowPAN layer between the NFCIP layer and the Ipv6 layer, comprising;

eliding zeros in an address associated with the request by setting a number of octets in an NFCIP link-layer address to zero; and

setting each of a remaining number of octets in the NFCIP link-layer address to a randomly generated value, so that the NFCIP link-layer address is compressed down to an address length of a 802.15.4 link-layer address length; and

receiving a response to the request from the NFC tag that is in communication with the Ipv6 layer.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein sending the request comprises:

constraining applications to limit packets, sent in response to the request, to 255 octets or less;

or

segmenting or compressing packets in the response, sent in response to the request, to 255 octets or less.

16. The method of claim 14, additionally comprising:

activating active mode in a metering device in response to the NFC tag initiator; and

sending to a poll from the NFC tag initiator in response to a collision of data packets.