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30
A
quiet revolution is in progress in the utility
industry. Electromechanical metering
devices, in use for the better part of a
century to record electrical energy usage
in kilowatt hours, are gradually being
replaced by multirate, multifunction meters capable
of more accurately accounting for utility usage. A new
generation of microcontrollers is speeding the progress of
this revolution.
Beginnings
In 1885, Galileo Ferraris discovered that a solid armature
placed in an out-of-phase ac magnetic eld would rotate at
a rate proportional to the ow of electrical energy in the
coils that generated the eld. This discovery is the principle
on which the great majority of electric meters still operate
today.
In the typical meter, a solid armature is mounted on jeweled
bearings and allowed to rotate freely in a sealed container.
Coils apply the ac magnetic eld proportional to the amount
of power owing through the meter, and a counter detects
the number of revolutions made by the disk.
Microcontrollers Fit the
Bill for Electricity Metering
New MCUs i ntegrate the measurement,
computation, communications, memory and
display driver functions needed in multirate,
multifunction electronic energy meters.
By Ben Smith, Staff Engineer,
Dallas Semiconductor/Maxim, Dallas
While a century of renement has made the kilowatt-
hour meter one of the most reliable mechanical products
in wide production, it remains a mechanical device prone
to wear, shock and other events that affect anything with
moving parts. Another limitation is that the meter, as usually
deployed, maintains no record of the time when usage
occurred. The meter only counts revolutions of the wheel
and does not record the times when the wheel is moving
faster or slower.
It is useful to know when electric power is consumed,
because the demand placed on the electric utility is not
constant over time. In fact, much more power is used during
waking hours than overnight. Utilities must design their
delivery systems to meet demand in the peak hour. This
means that for all other times, generators will be operating at
less than peak capacity; and since electricity cant be stored,
an expensive capital resource is being partially wasted.
For this reason, electric utility providers have an interest
in encouraging energy conservation during peak periods
and consumption during off-peak periods. The best way
to do this is through selective pricing; that is, charging the
customer more for energy consumed during peak periods and
providing a discount during slack periods. This is a function
of which static kilowatt-hour meters are incapable.
A third limitation of traditional meters is that they
measure only real power. In an ideal world, measuring real
power is all that would be necessarycurrent and voltage
would ow in phase. However, devices such as induction
motors and uorescent lamp ballasts cause current to ow
out of phase with the applied voltage. Only the in-phase
component is usable as power, the remainder is reected back
into the power grid. As a result, fewer actual watts are used
compared to the number of volt-amperes delivered.
For large industrial customers, electric utilities have
long used VAR-hour meters to determine the amount of
out-of-phase or reactive power delivered to the customer.
With a multifunction meter, utilities can extend power
factor monitoring to smaller commercial customers and, in
400 k
1 k
0.1 F
0.1 F
1 k
Neutral
Hot
Voltage Sense Hi
Voltage Sense Lo
Fig. 1. The voltage channel of the reference electric meter consists of a
simple voltage divider providing a ratio of 400-to-1.
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32
some cases, to residences. By making multifunction meters
standard, a utility can more easily determine where contract
terms may need to be adjusted to include power factor
penalty language.
Finally, there is the question of reading the meter
and transferring the collected usage data to the billing
department. Sending personnel into the eld to record usage
is expensive and prone to human error. Add the complexity
of having to record usage during several tariff periods, and
the burden becomes unacceptable. Some form of automated
reading is needed.
The requirements for increased exibility in measuring
usage by time and power factor, improved reading speed
and accuracy, combined with the expectation of reliability
long provided by mechanical meters, suggests the need for
an all-electronic meter built around a microcontroller. In
fact, electric meter manufacturers since the early 1990s have
been producing meters that measure usage electronically and
use digital circuits to accumulate and display energy. Now a
new generation of microcontrollers are making the design
task easier and faster.
Design Fundamentals
The hardware components of a multirate, multifunction
meter are simple: a means of taking samples of the input
voltage and current through the meter, a display mechanism,
a communications subsystem, a nonvolatile memory, a
power supply, and a stored-program microcontroller to keep
everything in step. The good news for meter designers is that
many of these components can be found integrated on the
microcontroller itself.
For example, the MAXQ3120 from Dallas Semiconductor/
Maxim, headquartered in Dallas, integrates two 16-bit A/D
converters for the voltage and current channels, two UARTS
(one congured for IR communication), an LCD controller
and a 16 16 multiply-accumulate unit on a single die, with
sufcient data RAM and program ash to provide all the
functions mentioned above for a multirate, multifunction
electric meter.
Designing the operating software for such a meter is more
challenging. First, since the software denes the fundamental
behavior of the product, it will of necessity be different for
each locale. Second, even if designed in a high-level language
(like C), the software will have to be customized for the
particular hardware environment in which it will run.
The relative simplicity of the hardware for an electric
meter as compared to its operating software actually provides
an opportunity for the electric meter manufacturer: since
loading the operating software can be a late-stage operation,
it is possible to build and stock many base circuit boards
for an electric meter, customizing them with individual
software loads as they are ordered by the various electric
utilities. This is important since overall product cost may
well be the make-or-break factor in selling the product to
an end customer. Dallas Semiconductor/Maxim provides
a reference design in C that can be customized and
modied to provide any level of functionality needed by the
end user.
Since most modern A/D converters are voltage-input
devices, measuring the input voltage is easy, in that it is
only necessary to scale the voltage on the input to the range
(usually from a few tens of millivolts to about 1 V) required
by the differential input of the A/D converter. In the reference
design, a resistor network divides the input voltage by a factor
of 400. The resistor divider converts the line voltage to the
1-V to 1-V range required by the A/D converter (Fig. 1).
On the current side, a current shunt converts the current
through the meter to a small, millivolt-level voltage. The
voltage across the shunt must be kept small to minimize the
power dissipated by the shunt: a 0.5-m shunt will provide
only a 20-mV full-scale signal, but will dissipate almost
1 W at 40 A (Fig. 2).
0.1 F
1 k
1 k
Load
Line
350
Shunt
Current Sense Hi
Current Sense Lo
Fig. 2. The current channel of the reference electric meter uses a current
shunt to convert the load current to a millivolt-level voltage.
Transformers
Inductors
Filters
EMI/RFI CMCs
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Now its time
to focus on the
dat a converters
themselves. At rst,
the requirements
to measure a 50-
Hz or 60-Hz signal
seem trivial. But on
closer inspection,
the job is a little
tougher. Look at
accuracy rst: most
specifications call
for the meter to
have 1% accuracy
over i t s ent i re
rangenot j ust
full-scale accuracy.
The r e f e r e nc e
design described
here has guaranteed
accuracy from 1 A
to 40 A. To meet
this requirement,
the meter must
successfully resolve
current as low as
10 mA, but not saturate until it is measuring more than 40
Aa 4000-to-1 ratio. This means that the data converter
can be no less than 12 bits, with a 14-bit or better converter
preferable.
What about sample rate? If the fundamental frequency
was all that was of concern, then sampling at some rate above
the Nyquist frequency (120 Hz for a 60-Hz system) consistent
with conservative anti-aliasing filter design would be
sufcient. However, most specications require that the meter
accurately measure power containing frequencies as high as
the 21st harmonic. In a 60-Hz system, that corresponds to
a frequency response of 1260 Hz and a sampling frequency
of no less than 2520 Hz. While these specications are no
challenge for modern data converters, they may stretch the
capabilities of some of the A/D converters built into many
microcontroller devices.
Hardware Design Analysis
The hardware for the reference design is shown in Fig. 3.
The entire meter consists of the MAXQ3120 microcontroller,
a power supply, a display, an I
2
C EEPROM, the input sensors
and communication peripherals.
The reference design described here uses an LCD as
a display element. The advantage is obvious. By using
annunciators, the display can indicate anything from energy
to voltage to time of day.
The disadvantage of an electronic display is that it shows
nothing when the power is off. And while a mechanical
counter is inherently nonvolatile, measures must be taken to
ensure that the last reading displayed is maintained internally
by the meter.
There are simply too many communications schemes
in the market today to ever hope to cover every one in an
integrated peripheral. It is a reasonable bet, however, that
for an inexpensive metering apparatus, it is likely going to
be some variant on simple asynchronous serial.
In the reference design for the MAXQ3120, we settled on
two serial peripheral channels. The rst is based on the EIA-485
standard. In this arrangement, the meters reside on a network
that is managed by a PC acting as a central controller. As the
PC polls the meters, they respond with data packets that
represent usage. The PC can then aggregate and transmit
the information to a billing facility.
The second communication channel is an IR transmitter
and receiver system based on simple asynchronous protocols.
The communications protocol is based on a Chinese electric
meter specication, DL/T 645, which species an IR physical
layer that differs signicantly from those found in commonly
used standards. For details on physical layer encoding, see
Fig. 4. In the transmitter channel, a circuit modulates the
output of the UART so that a 0 is transmitted as a 38-kHz
signal and a 1 is represented by the absence of the signal.
The receiver is implemented in an inexpensive IC that
integrates an IR photodiode and a 38-kHz detector. In this
way, only the optical components themselves are required to
implement a fully functional IR transceiver system.
Power is the simplest block. Since modern micro-
controllers are low-power devices, a simple transformer-
CPU
MAXQ
3120
JTAG
Display
Voltage Channel
Segments
Common
Tx
Rx
Tx
Rx
Tx Enable
Current Channel
Infrared
Communications
Interface
Net
Address
Button
Meter
Pulse
I
s
o
l
a
t
e
d
E
I
A
4
8
5
E
E
P
R
O
M
T
i
m
e

o
f
D
a
y
Vdd
Isolated Vdd
Current
Shunt
Load
Line
Signal
Conditioning
Power
Supply
Fig 3. Hardware components of the reference design meter. Because of the highly integrated microcontroller, all that
is needed is a display, a power supply, a nonvolatile memory, physical devices for communication, and passive signal
conditioning for measuring voltage and current.
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34
based linear supply is all that is needed.
In the reference design, the microcontroller is not isolated
from the power line; in fact, the system ground is at line
voltage. This makes it impossible to directly connect the
network to the microcontroller, because equipment on the
network would be exposed to line-level voltages. In this
design, a separate winding on the transformer provides
power to the network transceiver, and the transceiver is
optically coupled to the microcontroller, thus preserving
isolation.
There are two major contenders for a nonvolatile data
store for the reference design: semiconductor EEPROM
and ferroelectric RAM (FRAM.) The former is much less
expensive, but has relatively long write timeson the order of
millisecondsand, depending on model, is only guaranteed
Asynchronous
Data
Start
Bit
Bit
0
Bit
1
38 kHz Carrier
Bit
2
Bit
3
Bit
4
Bit
5
Bit
6
833 s
Bit Time
Bit
7
Odd
Parity
Stop
Bit
Transmitted
Carrier
Fig. 4. The IR communications channel uses a simple on-off modulation scheme. The presence of a 38-kHz carrier
represents a 0 bit, while the absence of a carrier represents a 1 bit. The character format is 8 bits, one stop bit and
odd parity.
to endure between
10,000 and 1 million
write cycles. While
this might sound
like a large number,
consider that the
software subsystem
would like to update
t he nonvol at i l e
memory every line
cycle. At 50 Hz, that
means even the best EEPROM might wear out in as little as
5- hours. In practice, a caching subsystem prevents this
from happening, but the problem is not trivial.
FRAM solves these problems at a price. A FRAM has
a write cycle that takes no longer than a read cyclea
few microseconds, with the bulk of the time being
communications overheadand it has an unlimited
endurance. The downside is that it can cost several times an
equivalently sized EEPROM.
Choosing a Microcontroller
There are several factors to consider when choosing
a microcontroller for an electric meter. Consider the
following:
Feature set. Does the microcontroller have the
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peripherals you will
need? Look for an
integrated time-
of-day clock, serial
communi cat i on
peripherals, timers
and counters, IR
communi cati on,
a nd a di s pl a y
controller. You will
also require some
f or m of s i gnal
processing, either on
the microcontroller
or in an external
device.
Code space.
If the application
will be written in
C, plan on between
16 kbytes and 64
kbytes of code space. The reference design presented here
ts comfortably in 32 kbytes.
Data space. Make sure your microcontroller has enough
data RAM to accommodate your data structures.
Data converters. While many microcontrollers have
data acquisition systems built onto the die, often they
are low speed, low resolution or both. An ideal converter
for a Class-1 meter as defined in IEC61036 would have
14-bits or better resolution, and 10-ksps sample rate or
better.
Real-time clock. Make sure the clock is trimmable to
a half-second-per-month accuracy. If it is not, consider an
external oscillator or clock module.
Getting the Software Right
In the reference design, a full, pre-emptive OS was
considered and rejected on the grounds that it would be
unnecessarily wasteful of resources. While the design does
need some degree of multitasking, full pre-emption is not
required. Instead, a simple main process was built that calls
tasks one after another, and each task is designed to do its
work and then relinquish control of the processor after
a short time. This main process is called the task wheel
and performs the work of a simple task scheduler. In this
way, every task executes when it must and no task is starved
for cycles. See Fig. 5 for an overview of the major software
blocks.
In the electric meter design, every task monitors its input
conditions to see if there is anything to be done; if not, it
simply returns to the task wheel. For some tasks, the input
conditions are based on external events. For example, a
sample becomes ready at the A/D converter or a character
becomes available at one of the serial ports.
For other tasks, the condition is strictly internal: an update
to the cumulative energy needs to be made or the display
Priority
Task
Wheel
IR
Driver
EIA485
Driver
Message Processing
DSP Engine
Asynchronous
Events
Display
Formatter
Message
Board
Register
Manager
Time of
Day
Manager
Scheduling
Highest
Normal
Lowest
Fig 5. Software components of the reference design meter. Each of the tasks is called by a central task wheel without
pre-emption. Higher priority tasks occur earlier in the task list and thus get an earlier chance at processor cycles. The
message board facilitates inter-task notications, as depicted by bold arrows in the diagram.
needs to be updated. For these events, the system maintains
a set of bits, each of which is set by one task to alert another
task that there is a condition that requires its attention. This
set of bits is called the message board.
In a practical meter design, the data elements to be
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maintained in storage and the data formats will depend
strongly on the communication protocols that are used. The
reference design was based on DL/T 645, a Chinese electric
meter communication standard. In this standard, usage
data, configuration
information, and
many commands
are transferred to
and from the meter
using a series of
registers. Each reg-
ister is designated
by a four-digit hexa-
deci mal number
and contains one
piece of informa-
tion: register 9010
contains information
about current usage
while register C032
contains the serial
numbe r of t he
meter.
Fi gure 6 i l l u-
strates how a mes-
s age reques t i ng
data from a register
would be handled. In the illustration, the request begins
as it is received at the serial port manager and flows
counterclockwise, activating each task along the way until the
requested data is nally transmitted at the serial port manger.
Serial
Port
Driver
Message
Checker
Message
Builder
Message
Formatter
Register
Manager
Message
Decoder
1. Character by character, the
Serial Port Driver alerts the
Message Checker that data
is incoming.
5. The Register Manager
retrieves data from the
register and passes it to the
Register Formatter.
10. As each flag is
cleared, completion notification
flows up the chain until finally the
Message Checker is notified. The
system is now ready to
process the next message.
3. When Message Checker
receives a complete, valid
message, it alerts
the Message
Decoder.
4. Messages that require a
register read are routed to
the Register Manager.
2. Message Checker
acknowledges each
character as received.
6. After creating the response, the
Message Formatter alerts the
Message Builder.
8. The Serial Port Driver
acknowledges each byte as
it is transmitted.
9. After the last
byte, the Message Builder
clears the flag toward the
Message Formatter.
7. The Message Builder appends a preamble and
calculates the checksum and passes the message,
byte by byte, to the Serial Port Driver.
Fig. 6. Message processing in the electric meter reference design. Inbound messages are assembled, decoded and
processed; outbound messages are formatted and built by separate tasks that communicate with one another using
a message board.
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Then, acknowledgments ow clockwise, clearing the busy
indication at each task until the entire system is ready for
the next inbound message.
The following narrative provides more detail on the
message passing and processing system:
The message comes in, byte by byte, from the IR receiver
module. As each byte comes in, the serial port driver sets a
bit in the message board to notify the message checker task
of the event.
When notied, the message checker consumes the
character from the serial port driver and, if contextually
correct, adds the byte to the message queue. The message
checker understands message syntax, but does not
understand anything about the message payload. When the
message has been completely received, the message decoder
task is alerted by setting a message board bit.
The message decoder inspects the incoming message
and determines that: (1) it is a read command; (2) it is for
a valid register; and (3) there is no other condition that
would prevent the execution of the command. If all this is
true, the register manager is notified via the message board
that a register read is required. Note that the message
decoder does not at this time clear the notification given
by the message checker. Only one message is handled at
a time.
The register manager interacts with the EEPROM
to retrieve the requested information. When nished, it
noties the message formatter that a register is ready to be
transmitted. As in the previous step, it does not clear the
message ag set by the message decoder.
The message formatter moves the data just read from
the register manager data buffer to the communication
buffer. It also sets the message length in the communication
buffer before notifying the message builder that a buffer is
ready to be transmitted.
The message builder then sends each byte of the
message one at a time to the serial port driver. It is also
responsible for calculating the message checksum. When the
last byte has been sent, it clears the notication bit from the
message formatter. On its next turn, the message formatter
clears its notication bit from the register manager, and so
forth until the message chain is clear.
Every process in the meter works in this way, setting
bits in the message board and notifying other tasks of
conditions. The primary advantage of using this method
is that it requires very little RAM to implement: the entire
reference design ts in less than 1/2 kbyte of data RAM.
Fully documented source code is available from Dallas
Semiconductor/Maxim.
As utilities are increasingly squeezed by generation
prices on the one hand and regulatory pressure on the other,
they are increasingly seeking ways of enhancing market
efciency. With the new generation of microcontrollers
now available, meter manufacturers can deliver the
means of more efcient electric power delivery, metering
and billing. PETech
just everywhere

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