System and method for simultaneous communication on Modbus and DNP 3.0 over Ethernet for electronic power meter

• US 8,189,617 B2
• Filed: 10/26/2009
• Issued: 05/29/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/12/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: EI Electronics LLC (Hubbell, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Electro Industries/Gaugetech
• Inventors: Kagan, Erran, Slota, Fredrick, Wang, Wei, Spanier, Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Xavier Szewai
• Application Number:
  US12/605,682
• Publication Number:
  US 20100046545A1
• Time in Patent Office: 946 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/466
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 22/063 related to remote communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40136 Nodes adapting their rate to the physical link properties LAN switches H04L49/351
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/30 Smart metering, e.g. specially adapted for remote reading

Abstract

A system and method is provided for simultaneous communications on Modbus and DNP 3.0 over Ethernet for an electronic power meter. The system incorporates one or more protocol wrappers to provide compatibility with both Modbus and DNP based applications. The system removes the appropriate wrappers and routes the incoming data packet to its destination. Additionally, the system also wraps outgoing response packets with the appropriate protocol wrapper based on the related data packet wrappers.

Claims

1. An electric power meter for providing simultaneous communications to a plurality of applications, the electric power meter comprising:

at least one processor configured to perform multiple metering tasks;

a serial channel coupling the at least one processor to a network adapter, the serial channel operating according to a first protocol; and

the network adapter configured to receive a data packet using an Ethernet protocol wrapper over an Ethernet connection, remove said Ethernet protocol wrapper, determine a secondary protocol used by said data packet by inspecting said data packet after said Ethernet protocol wrapper is removed, route said data packet to the at least one processor if the determined secondary protocol matches the first protocol, and, if the secondary protocol does not match the first protocol, append a wrapper according to the first protocol to said data packet and route the data packet to the at least one processor after the wrapper is appended to the data packet;

wherein

the at least one processor is further configured to parse said data packet, provide a response packet including electrical energy metering information of said electric power meter using said first protocol and route said response packet to the network adapter over the serial channel; and

the network adapter is further configured to append an Ethernet protocol wrapper to said response packet and transmit said response packet over said Ethernet connection, wherein said first protocol is a Modbus protocol and said secondary protocol is a Distributed Network Protocol (DNP) protocol and said data packet is a DNP data packet.

2. The electric power meter of claim 1, wherein the network adapter is further configured to append a Modbus wrapper to said DNP data packet and transfer said Modbus wrapped DNP data packet to the at least one processor and the at least one processor is further configured to remove said Modbus wrapper from said DNP data packet and parse said DNP data packet.

3. The electric power meter of claim 2, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to append a Modbus wrapper to said response packet and transfer said Modbus wrapped response packet to said network adapter and the network adapter is further configured to remove said Modbus wrapper from said response packet prior to appending the Ethernet protocol wrapper.

4. The electric power meter of claim 1, further comprising a digital sampler for sampling a voltage and a current at a sampling point coupled to the at least one processor, wherein the at least one processor is configured to perform the multiple metering tasks related to the sampled voltage and current.

5. The electric power meter of claim 4, wherein the multiple metering tasks include executing revenue calculations.

6. The electric power meter of claim 1, further comprising an external device interface for connecting an external device to said electric power meter, wherein said external device transmits packet data to said electric power meter to be processed by the at least one processor and provided through said network adapter.

7. The electric power meter of claim 1, wherein said network adapter supports one of 100 base-T and 10 base-T communications.

8. The electric power meter of claim 1, wherein said Ethernet protocol wrapper is formatted in accordance with Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

9. The electric power meter of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor includes a web server configured to provide data to the network adapter in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

10. An electric power meter for providing simultaneous communications to a plurality of applications, the electric power meter comprising:

at least one processor configured to perform multiple metering tasks;

a serial channel coupling the at least one processor to a network adapter, the serial channel operating according to a first protocol; and

the network adapter configured to receive a data packet using a network protocol wrapper over an Ethernet connection, remove said network protocol wrapper, determine a secondary protocol used by said data packet by inspecting said data packet after said network protocol wrapper is removed, route said data packet to the at least one processor if the determined secondary protocol matches the first protocol, and, if the secondary protocol does not match the first protocol, append a wrapper according to the first protocol to said data packet and route the data packet to the at least one processor after the wrapper is appended to the data packet;

wherein

the at least one processor is further configured to parse said data packet, provide a response packet including electrical energy metering information of said electric power meter using said first protocol and route said response packet to the network adapter over the serial channel; and

the network adapter is further configured to append the network protocol wrapper to said response packet and transmit said response packet over said Ethernet connection, wherein said first protocol is a Modbus protocol and said secondary protocol is a Distributed Network Protocol (DNP) protocol and said data packet is a DNP data packet.

11. The electric power meter of claim 10, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with Modbus Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

12. The electric power meter of claim 10, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with RS-485.

13. The electric power meter of claim 10, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with an e-mail protocol.

14. The electric power meter of claim 10, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

15. The electric power meter of claim 10, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).

16. The electric power meter of claim 10, further comprising a digital sampler for sampling a voltage and a current at a sampling point coupled to the at least one processor, wherein the at least one processor is configured to perform the multiple metering tasks related to the sampled voltage and current.

17. The electric power meter of claim 16, wherein the multiple metering tasks include executing revenue calculations.

18. The electric power meter of claim 10, further comprising an external device interface for connecting an external device to said electric power meter, wherein said external device transmits packet data to said electric power meter to be processed by the at least one processor and provided through said network adapter.

19. The electric power meter of claim 10, wherein said network adapter supports one of 100 base-T and 10 base-T communications.

20. An electric power meter for providing simultaneous communications to a plurality of applications, the electric power meter comprising:

at least one processing module configured to perform multiple metering tasks, the at least one processing module coupled to a network adapter; and

the network adapter configured to receive a data packet using a network protocol wrapper over an Ethernet connection, remove said network protocol wrapper, determine a first protocol used by said data packet by inspecting said data packet after said network protocol wrapper is removed and route said data packet to the at least one processing module in a secondary protocol used by the at least one processing module, wherein

the network adapter is further configured to append the network protocol wrapper to a response packet from the at least one processing module and transmit said response packet over said Ethernet connection, wherein said first protocol is a Distributed Network Protocol (DNP) protocol, said data packet is a DNP data packet and said secondary protocol is a Modbus protocol.

21. The electric power meter of claim 20, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with Modbus Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

22. The electric power meter of claim 20, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with an e-mail protocol.

23. The electric power meter of claim 20, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

24. The electric power meter of claim 20, wherein said network protocol wrapper is in accordance with Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).

25. The electric power meter of claim 20, further comprising a digital sampler for sampling a voltage and a current at a sampling point coupled to the at least one processing module, wherein the at least one processing module is configured to perform the multiple metering tasks related to the sampled voltage and current.

26. The electric power meter of claim 25, wherein the multiple metering tasks include executing revenue calculations.

27. The electric power meter of claim 20, further comprising an external device interface for connecting an external device to said electric power meter, wherein said external device transmits data to said electric power meter to be processed by the at least one processing module and provided through said network adapter.

28. The electric power meter of claim 20, wherein said network adapter supports one of 100 base-T and 10 base-T communications.

29. The electric power meter of claim 20, wherein said network protocol wrapper is formatted in accordance with Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

30. The electric power meter of claim 20, wherein the at least one processing module includes a web server configured to provide data to the network adapter in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

31. An electronic power meter for providing concurrent communications to a plurality of applications, the electronic power meter comprising:

at least one processor configured to perform multiple metering tasks; and

at least one network interface;

the at least one processor configured to receive a data packet from the network interface using a network protocol wrapper over an Ethernet connection, remove said network protocol wrapper and determine a protocol used by said data packet by inspecting said data packet after said network protocol wrapper is removed;

the at least one processor is further configured to append the network protocol wrapper to a response packet and transmit said response packet over said Ethernet connection;

and wherein the at least one processor is configured to respond to simultaneous requests from applications utilizing multiple Ethernet sockets and Ethernet ports utilizing a plurality of protocols, wherein said plurality of protocols are in accordance with Modbus Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Distributed Network Protocol (DNP) 3.0.

32. The electronic power meter of claim 31, wherein said plurality of protocols are in accordance with Modbus Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and DNP 3.0.

33. The electronic power meter of claim 31, wherein said plurality of protocols are two disparate protocols.

34. The electronic power meter of claim 33, wherein the at least one network interface includes an RJ45 connector.

35. The electronic power meter of claim 34, wherein the at least one processor is capable of parsing 100 BaseT Ethernet packets.

36. The electronic power meter of claim 35, wherein the at least one processor is configured to be addressed using DHCP protocol.

37. The electronic power meter of claim 36, wherein the at least one processor is capable of formatting an email message and transmitting said email message through said network interface to an email server.

38. An electronic power meter for providing concurrent communications to a plurality of applications, the electronic power meter comprising:

at least one network interface;

at least one processor configured to perform multiple metering tasks;

the at least one processor configured to receive a data packet from the network interface using a network protocol wrapper over an Ethernet connection, remove said network protocol wrapper and determine a protocol used by said data packet by inspecting said data packet after said network protocol wrapper is removed;

the at least one processor is further configured to append the network protocol wrapper to a response packet and transmit said response packet over said Ethernet connection, wherein the at least one processor is configured to respond to simultaneous requests from applications utilizing multiple Ethernet sockets and Ethernet ports utilizing a plurality of protocols; and

a gateway interface for communicating serial data to slave devices using a serial protocol;

wherein the at least one processor is further configured to format the serial data received by the slave devices and transmit the formatted data via the at least one network interface, wherein said plurality of protocols are in accordance with Modbus Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Distributed Network Protocol (DNP) 3.0.

39. The electronic power meter of claim 38 wherein the at least one processor'"'"'s said formatting includes changing the protocol of the data collected from the slave devices.

40. The electronic power meter of claim 38 wherein the at least one processor'"'"'s said formatting includes adding an Ethernet wrapper to the data collected from the slave devices.

41. The electronic power meter of claim 38 wherein the at least one processor'"'"'s said formatting includes modifying the data collected from the slave devices into a different data type.

42. The electronic power meter of claim 38 wherein the at least one processor'"'"'s said formatting includes modifying the data collected from the slave device into HTML.

43. The electronic power meter of claim 38 wherein the at least one processor'"'"'s said formatting includes modifying the data collected from the slave device into XML.

44. The electronic power meter of claim 38 wherein the at least one processor'"'"'s said formatting includes modifying the data collected from the slave device into an email message.