Research Profile
Research Profile
Research Profile
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This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
tionally, the sensor can deliver data with a resolution of 1 sample Fig. 3. Magnetic sensor array with an automated calibrator.
per second or higher. Currents in both hot conductors are avail-
able and the harmonic currents are also available. Therefore,
netic sensors to create an over-determined linear system, opti-
it is an ideal fit for NILM-based home monitoring strategy. The
mization algorithms are used to determine the currents by mini-
proposed technique has been evaluated through extensive tests
mizing the differences between the calculated and measured .
in multiple residential houses. Satisfactory measurement perfor-
Extensive case studies revealed that this approach is not appli-
mances have been achieved.
cable to home monitoring either, as the optimization algorithms
rarely converge to the correct results, in addition to requiring
II. DESCRIPTION OF PROPOSED TECHNOLOGY
very long computing time.
The proposed measurement technique includes two key com- This paper proposes a calibration scheme to determine
ponents. The first component, shown in Fig. 2, is a set of mag- . A calibrator, which is the second key component of
netic field sensors that surround the conductors whose currents the proposed technology, is connected to the conductors at a
are to be measured. In the figure shown, there are three conduc- home outlet downstream of the sensor array (Fig. 3). Using
tors A, B and N, which is the typical situation in North America. the power electronic switching, the calibrator draws specific
Conductor A is energized with and B with ,N currents and current patterns for a short period in an automated
is the neutral. Three sensors, 1, 2 and 3 are deployed outside the manner. The characteristics of the currents drawn are made
conduit. known to the sensor array through a power line communication
According to the electromagnetic theory, an AC current car- (PLC) scheme that is also realized by the calibrator (explained
rying conductor will produce a magnetic field in its surround- later). The sensor array uses these known patterns and current
ings. The strength of the magnetic field at a point in space, information to establish the matrix . Once this relationship
i.e., the sensing point, is proportional to the current and is in- is established, the sensor array can start to “measure” the
versely proportional to the distance between that point and the conductor currents by calculating them using that relationship
conductor. Since many different types of sensors can be used to and the sensed magnetic fields.
measure the magnetic field strength, we define the sensor output One of the main innovations of the proposed calibration
as the vector . For this linear system, the following relation- scheme is that the calibration current contains a special pattern:
ship will hold: it is created every other cycle. The difference of the currents
between two consecutive cycles is the calibration current. As
a result, this scheme is immune from background waveform
(1)
distortions and the impact of currents from other loads can be
eliminated.
The second advantage of drawing current every other cycle
(2) is that the peak instant of the calibration current can be detected
at the sensor side. This instant is used to synchronize the phasor
with the phasor . Note that to solve for , both phasors
where , and denote the output of sensors 1, 2 and 3; , must be synchronized to the same time instant.
and represent the AC current flowing through the conduc- The calibration current is determined and trans-
tors. Equation (1) states the relationship in time-domain while mitted to the sensor location by the calibrator. In other words,
(2) indicates the frequency-domain relationship. the calibrator is also a power line communication device, which
Since the positions of the sensors and conductors are fixed, is the third innovation of the proposed technique. As a result, the
the coefficient matrices are constant. If the matrices are known, sensor system does not require other communication means.
we can solve for the currents either in time domain or frequency
domain according to III. CALIBRATION AND COMMUNICATION SCHEMES
(3) The calibrator is expected to create three distinct momentary
current patterns. The scheme to achieve this goal is shown in
It can be seen that establishing the relationship between the Fig. 4. In this scheme, simple thyristor switches are used to
sensor outputs and the conductor currents holds the key for mea- create the calibration current every other cycle.
suring the conductor currents. A commonly known method to
determine is to obtain the geometric information of the con- A. Calibration Scheme
ductors and sensors [11]–[14]. However, this approach is not ap- The principle of the calibration scheme is demonstrated as
plicable for home monitoring since such required information is follows. During a single calibration event that lasts for 12 cy-
not attainable. References [15] and [16] utilize redundant mag- cles, the conductor currents consist of the currents drawn by the
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GAO et al.: A NOVEL CURRENT SENSOR FOR HOME ENERGY USE MONITORING 3
calibrator and the currents from other electrical loads also con-
nected in the circuit, as follows:
(4)
(5)
(9)
The calibrator is designed to draw three distinct current
patterns from various conductor combinations (A-N, B-N and Fig. 6 shows the calibration current as well as the thyristor
A-B). Three calibration events will result in: voltage waveform before and after the thyristor conduction.
In the actual implementation, the calibration current is pro-
(6) cessed by the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The FFT window
starts at the current peak as shown in Fig. 6. This window po-
where , and represent three different current patterns. sition must be detected and used at the sensor location so that
For the above equation, both and are known. and are synchronized.
So the matrix can be solved as follows: Fig. 7 illustrates one set of waveforms during the calibration
process. The firing angle is set to after the rising edge of
(7) carrier voltage . Each calibration pattern in one segment
consists of two cycles, the first cycle of Segment 1 contains the
calibration signal and the second cycle does not. It can be seen
B. Characteristics of Calibration Current that during the calibration, a current pulse is suddenly injected
The case of using phase A and the neutral for calibration is into phase A-N. Meanwhile, phase B current is not involved and
shown in Fig. 5(a). In this circuit, represents the system the current flowing through phase B remains almost unchanged.
impedance upstream of the calibrator. There is an impedance
in series with the thyristor. Its purpose is to limit the cali- The current waveforms shown in Fig. 7 are the currents en-
bration current. Extensive studies conclude that a resistor is the tering a home, i.e., those measured at the electric panel. The
best option from a number of perspectives, such as the size and calibration current that the sensor array used to generate the ma-
the cost. The simplified equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 5(b). trix is actually sampled at the calibrator location. To verify
The load is neglected in the equivalent circuit as its impact on the consistency of the calibration current at the two different
the calibration current is small, which is similar to the short-cir- locations, two consecutive cycles of the conductor current
cuit analysis where the loads can be neglected. are subtracted by each other. The results should be equal to the
The steady-state phase A-N voltage is expressed as current drawn by the calibrator. Fig. 8 shows the comparison
of and the actual calibration current seen at the
(8) sensor. It can be seen that the agreement is quite good. The small
difference of the waveform is caused by the existence of the
If the thyristor firing angle is selected as , the corresponding system impedance . Although very small, could cause
waveforms of the thyristor current, i.e., the calibration current the voltage drop between the sensor location and the calibrator
is: location during the calibration, which has a minor impact on the
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
(11)
(12)
GAO et al.: A NOVEL CURRENT SENSOR FOR HOME ENERGY USE MONITORING 5
Fig. 14. Extracted sensor outputs that are due to the calibration current.
GAO et al.: A NOVEL CURRENT SENSOR FOR HOME ENERGY USE MONITORING 7
TABLE I
CURRENT MEASUREMENT ACCURACY
i.e., the current level less than 1 A. This error is mainly due to the
weak magnetic field. Fortunately, the standard deviation for
both phases is independent of the current level and remained at
around 50 mA for both phase A and phase B. Overall, it is very
promising that the fundamental current error is within 5% for
the loading above 1 A.
It can be seen that the prototype sensor array technology has
a satisfactory performance when measuring currents above 1 A,
which is sufficient for home energy use tracking (not for billing).
The main problem encountered in the field is the magnetic field
interference. Research is ongoing to address this issue. Solu-
tions under investigation include shielding and adding more
sensors. Additional research or tests are needed to confirm the
long term performance of the scheme under various temperature
Fig. 19. One day of real life measurement in test house #1. conditions.
REFERENCES Wilsun Xu (F’05) received his Ph.D. degree from the University of British Co-
lumbia, Vancouver, Canada, in 1989. From 1989 to 1996, he was an Electrical
[1] T. Lui, W. Stirling, and H. Marcy, “Get smart,” IEEE Power Energy Engineer with BC Hydro, Vancouver. Currently, he is with the University of Al-
Mag., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 66–78, May/Jun. 2010. berta, Edmonton, Canada, as a Research Chair Professor. His current research
[2] P. Wallich, “Parsing power,” IEEE Spectrum, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 23–24, interests are power quality, power disturbance analytics, and power system mea-
Mar. 2013. surements.