IMPROVEMENTS TO ELECTRICAL ENERGY METERS AND THE PROCESSES OF READING THOSE METERS

摘要

Integrated hardware and software module attached to electrical energy meters , and integrated hardware and software module attached to a portable computer with wireless communication capability between the two modules. The former module is called an Electrica l energy Measurement Module (EMM) and the latter module is called a Data Gathering Module (DGM). An EMM has computing, storage, and wireless communication capabilities, and is powered by two sources: a primary power supply and an alternative battery source. An EM M records the total energy consumed so far, the energy consumption at periodic time intervals, and the average power factor over the corresponding time intervals. An EMM communicates with an external DGM over a wireless link. An EMM responds to commands from a DGM. Using management commands a DGM can initialize an EMM. Using the application commands a DGM gathers data from an EMM. The EMM and DGM mutually authenticate for added security.