COLLECTING INTERVAL DATA FROM A RELATIVE TIME BATTERY POWERED AUTOMATED METER READING DEVICES

摘要

The invention provides a system and method for providing a time reference in utility meter network. The novel method includes transmitting a message from a meter to a receiving device (e.g., another meter, a collector, a data collection server), where the message includes an interval and a sequence number. The interval is converted to a time stamp, which is used to time-stamp the message in the receiving device. The novel method reads data from the meter and stores the data as a function of the sequence number.