Partner und Internationale Organisationen
(Englisch)
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Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (CH), Logitech S.A., Romanel-sur-Morges (CH), Transval S.A., Valentigney (F)
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Abstract
(Englisch)
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In the frame of an ESPRIT project, 'SUPREGE', MEAD developed a wireless reading system for cold-water counters.
The sensing is based on an optoelectronic reading integrated module to be applied to the existing traditional counters. The integrated module features very low power consumption. The system also uses commercial RF modules as wireless UHF transceivers, and a microprocessor running under a hierarchical protocol assuring a high level of security with an optimized power consumption management.
Until now, all house/building meters such as water, energy, gas counters, etc. encounter the same practical and economical problem: reading of the data.
In the case of mechanical cold water counters, there was only one solution to the problem: send somebody to read each counter locally. The big disadvantage here is that this is a very expensive method of reading data. Moreover, as meter readers are often exposed to hostile environment, the inaccessibility of certain meters even entails a non-reading in such environments.
With technological evolution, some of these counters have become electrical using MODEM on telephonic lines. A serious disadvantage of this method is the need of installation of electrical cables from the counter to the modem, and then the use of (at least) one telephone line per building. Moreover, bringing electricity to the counter is a delicate operation due to the water proximity.
Radio meter reading has been chosen in this project to reduce the cost of reading the data to avoid substantial costs of cables and to allow reading in all environments.
The project is now completed and a functional demonstrator is available. The highlights of this system can be summarized as follows :
· Overall very low power consumption (average power consumption: < 10 [µA])
· An innovative hierarchical protocol supporting up to 127 sup-stations (the hierarchical structure of the protocol permits the use of a standard station as repeater. The number of repeaters, or Sub-Stations, is actually programmed for only 16 levels; it can be easily modified to reach 127 if needed!)
· Extremely robust and reliable opto-electrical sensor, with 2 [µA] of permanent current consumption.
Transmitting distance of 50m is generally sufficient in majority of the cases in this application. In geographical areas where longer distances are needed between the mobile station and the building, an additional amplifier or transceiver, functioning as repeater, can be used.
The achievements and conclusions of this work have been presented in the ESDLPD Workshop (July 25-28, 2000) in Rapallo, Italy.
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