Patent ID: 9606153
Date: 2017-03-28
CPC Classifications: G01D,G01R,G06F,Y04S

Claim:
1. A system for automatic identification of a device or appliance, the system comprising: at least one sensor configured to be associated with the device or appliance to be identified, and to monitor an evolution in time of at least one electrical quantity indicative of energy consumption by the device or appliance, wherein the device or appliance comprises an electric device or appliance, and wherein the electric device or appliance is connectable to an electric socket via the system; and an analyzer in communication with said at least one sensor and configured to receive therefrom reports of the monitored at least one electrical quantity, and to automatically identify the device or appliance by analyzing the evolution in time of the monitored at least one electrical quantity, wherein said analyzing comprises: determining an observation temporal window for the evolution in time of the monitored at least one electrical quantity, wherein the determining the observation temporal window comprises: determining that an instantaneous value associated with the monitored at least one electrical quantity exceeds a threshold value; and determining that a start time of the observation temporal window corresponds to a time that the instantaneous value associated with the monitored at least one electrical quantity exceeds the threshold value; calculating a cross-correlation between the evolution in time of the monitored at least one electrical quantity and at least one reference pattern representative of at least one sample device or appliance in at least one time interval corresponding to the determined observation temporal window; inserting the at least one sample device or appliance in a candidate list in case a value related to the calculated cross-correlation is above a predetermined threshold; and in case at least two sample devices or appliances are included in the candidate list, identifying the device or appliance by performing a selection among the at least two sample devices or appliances included in the candidate list based on characteristic parameters related to the respective calculated cross-correlations and different from said value.