Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7336200?dq=7565338
Timestamp: 2015-07-30 11:40:04
Document Index: 794943169

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60']

Patent US7336200 - Data communication protocol in an automatic meter reading system - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsAn automatic meter reading (AMR) system includes a fixed or mobile reader and an endpoint. The endpoint is interfaced to a utility meter and the fixed or mobile reader is capable of communicating with the endpoint via RF communication. In this system the fixed or mobile reader sends a message to the...http://www.google.com/patents/US7336200?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7336200 - Data communication protocol in an automatic meter reading systemAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7336200 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 10/915,706Publication dateFeb 26, 2008Filing dateAug 10, 2004Priority dateSep 5, 2003Fee statusLapsedAlso published asCA2479977A1, CA2479977C, EP1512946A2, EP1512946A3, US7479895, US8164479, US20050068193, US20060202856, US20080129537, US20120176253Publication number10915706, 915706, US 7336200 B2, US 7336200B2, US-B2-7336200, US7336200 B2, US7336200B2InventorsChristopher L. Osterloh, Christopher NagyOriginal AssigneeItron, Inc.Export CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (28), Referenced by (13), Classifications (18), Legal Events (6) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetData communication protocol in an automatic meter reading system
US 7336200 B2Abstract
An automatic meter reading (AMR) system includes a fixed or mobile reader and an endpoint. The endpoint is interfaced to a utility meter and the fixed or mobile reader is capable of communicating with the endpoint via RF communication. In this system the fixed or mobile reader sends a message to the endpoint that includes a response mode direction; the response mode direction from the reader tells the endpoint to respond to the reader either in a mobile network mode or a fixed network mode.
an endpoint interfaced to a utility meter,
wherein said reader is capable of communicating with said plurality of endpoint devices via RF communication; and
wherein said reader uses a single RF communication protocol in communicating with all of said plurality of endpoint devices and said single RF communication protocol supports both one-way communication and two-way communication, such that said reader uses said single RF communication protocol to permit communications with at least some of said plurality of endpoint devices via one-way communication and at least some of said endpoint devices via two-way communication; and
wherein said single RF communication protocol includes:
a physical layer that defines a common frequency band, channel bandwidth, modulation scheme, and preamble length for endpoint devices operating in one-way and two-way communication modes; and
a transport layer that defines timing and packetization for all data transferred between said reader and endpoint, wherein said packetization provides packets originating from endpoints operating in one-way and two-way communication modes to include at least a common endpoint ID field, a common endpoint type field, and a message field following the endpoint type field.
2. The AMR system of claim 1, wherein one-way communication enables said endpoint to communicate with said reader and deliver a specified message type.
3. The AMR system of claim 1, wherein two-way communication enables said reader to conmciunicate with said endpoint, command said endpoint, and enable said endpoint to respond to said reader.
4. The AMR system of claim 2, wherein two-way communication enables said reader to communicate with said endpoint, command said endpoint, and enable said endpoint to respond to said reader.
5. An automatic meter reading (AMR) system, comprising
an endpoint interfaced to a utility meter, wherein said reader is capable of communicating with said endpoint via RF communication;
wherein said RF communication occurs through the use of a communication protocol, and wherein said communication protocol includes a data link layer directing all outbound data transmissions from said reader to said endpoint to be Manchester encoded and directing inbound transmissions from said endpoint to said reader to be in a selectable encoding format selected from the set consisting of: Manchester encoding, and non-return to zero data encoding.
6. The AMR system of claim 5, wherein said data link layer provides a sequence inversion keyed (STK) countdown timer.
The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/500,550, filed on Sep. 5, 2003, and entitled, “DATA COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL IN AN AUTOMATIC METER READING SYSTEM.”
This application is related to commonly assigned U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/500,507, filed on Sep. 5, 2003, entitled, “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTION OF SPECIFIC ON-AIR DATA RATE,” U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/500,515, filed Sep. 5, 2003, entitled, “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MOBILE DEMAND RESET,” U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/500,504, filed Sep. 5, 2003, entitled, “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPTIMIZING CONTIGUOUS CHANNEL OPERATION WITH CELLULAR REUSE,” U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/500,479, filed Sep. 5, 2003, entitled, “SYNCHRONOUS DATA RECOVERY SYSTEM,” U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/500,550, filed Sep. 5, 2003, entitled, “DATA COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL IN AN AUTOMATIC METER READING SYSTEM,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/655,760, filed on Sep. 5, 2003, entitled, “SYNCHRONIZING AND CONTROLLING SOFTWARE DOWNLOADS, SUCH AS FOR COMPONENTS OF A UTILITY METER-READING SYSTEM,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/655,759, filed on Sep. 5, 2003, entitled, “FIELD DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING SYSTEM, SUCH AS FOR ELECTRIC, GAS, AND WATER UTILITY DATA,” which are herein incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to automatic meter reading systems and, more particularly, to the communication protocol used for the endpoint to reader hop in the automatic meter reading system.
The present invention is a data communication protocol used between an endpoint and a reader in an automatic meter reading (AMR) system. The communication protocol enables the reader to have a conversation with the endpoint in that the reader can tell the meter what to do, it can reconfigure the meter, it can tell the endpoint to reconfigure the meter, it can request a specific response, it can request the endpoint to reprogram certain values in both the endpoint and the meter, it can request that the end point get specific information from the meter, return it to the end point, which returns it to the reader, etc.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an automatic meter reading (AMR) system includes a fixed or mobile reader and an endpoint. The endpoint is interfaced to a utility meter and the fixed or mobile reader is capable of communicating with the endpoint via RF communication. In this system the fixed or mobile reader sends a message to the endpoint that includes a response mode direction; the response mode direction from the reader tells the endpoint to respond to the reader either in a mobile network mode or a fixed network mode.
In another embodiment of the invention, the reader uses a single RF communication protocol in communicating with the endpoint whether one-way communication or two-way communication is used. In still another embodiment of the invention, the RF communication between the endpoint and reader occurs through the use of a communication protocol that uses a data link layer that directs all outbound transmissions from the reader to the endpoint to be either Manchester encoded or transmitted as non-return to zero data. In still another embodiment of the invention, the communication protocol includes a transport layer that provides slotting control for all data transferred between the reader and the endpoint. In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the communication protocol utilizes a command and control frame for communication between the reader and endpoint. In still another embodiment of the present invention, a plurality of readers and endpoints are provided. The readers are quasi-synchronized in time to provide a control frame to at least one of the readers.
The present invention is a data communication protocol for automatic meter reading (AMR) systems. The protocol is designed to be flexible and expandable enabling both one-way and two-way meter reading in both fixed and mobile meter reading systems.
The data link layer provides a countdown timer. The countdown timer uses Sequence Inversion Keying to represent timer bits. Each system is assigned a 10-bit pseudo noise (PN) sequence (for valid sequences, see Table 1 below). That sequence in the data stream represents a timer bit value 0 and the inverse of that sequence in the data stream represents a timer bit value 1. Timer values are composed of 10 timer bits, or 100 data bits. The countdown timer begins at 1023 or 1111111111 binary, and counts sequentially to zero, encoding all timer bits as either the system PN sequence or its inverse. The total counter time, in seconds, is 102400/r, where r is the bit rate, in bits per second. FIG. 6 provides an example of a Sequence Inversion Keyed Countdown Timer.
TABLE 1 PN Sequences Sequence Inverted Number Usage Sequence = 0 Sequence = 1 0 Factory Default 0000000010 1111111101 1 Electric Devices 0000000110 1111111001 2 Electric Devices 0000001010 1111110101 3 Electric Devices 0000001110 1111110001 4 Electric Devices 0000011010 1111100101 5 Electric Devices 0000010110 1111101001 6 Electric Devices 0000111010 1111000101 7 Battery Devices 0000101110 1111010001 8 Battery Devices 0001110110 1110001001 9 Battery Devices 0001101110 1110010001 10 Battery Devices 0000011110 1111100001 11 Battery Devices 0001011110 1110100001 12 Battery Devices 0001111010 1110000101 All inbound packet transmissions are preceded by a 24-bit or 25 bit preamble and appended with a 16-bit CRC code, which is inclusive of all header information, but not the preamble, length, or length_bar bytes. The CRC polynomial is 0x1021. The CRC initialization value is 0x0000. CRC processing is performed most significant byte (MSB) first, and the final checksum is not inverted.
The transport layer is used to solve problems like reliability (“did the data reach the destination?”) and ensure that data arrives in the correct order. This layer manages the end-to-end control (for example, determining whether all packets have arrived) and error-checking. It ensures complete data transfer. In the present data communication protocol, slotting control is handled in the transport layer. This includes slot assignments, timing, and any necessary packetization. FIG. 7 details the packet structure. The message, message type, and flags are received from the presentation layer, and broken into appropriately sized packets. Each packet is prefaced with the endpoint ID, flags, message type, endpoint type, and packet length. The packet length reflects the number of bytes in the message itself, exclusive of header information. In the case where more than 254 bytes are required in a packet, the value of the length field is set to 0XFF, and the actual length of the message structure is placed in bytes 14 (high byte) and 15 (low byte), with the message bytes to follow. All packets must have a whole number of bytes in the message.
Field “0” of the command and control frame comprises the system identification (ID). Each system is issued an 8-bit ID value, which is stored in the endpoint, to distinguish different systems within geographic proximity. The endpoints are designed to respond to commands from their own system or to commands that address them specifically by ID number, proper security password, and have a 0x00 in field “0”. The system ID functions nearly identically to the cell ID, described below. However, the system ID is universal, while the cell ID is local, i.e., a single system will have multiple cells each having the same system ID but a different cell ID.
TABLE 5 Slot Lengths Nominal Value of Length Bits Length in Ticks* Nominal Length in ms 000 819 24.99390 001 1638 49.98779 010 3277 100.00610 011 6553 199.98169 100 9830 299.98780 101 16384 500.00000 110 32768 1000.00000 111 163840 5000.00000 *Defined as ticks of an ideal 32,768 Hz clock. The fourth bit is the forward error correction bit, wherein 0=no forward correction error and 1=forward error correct all responses. The fifth bit provides the slot mode, wherein 0=respond to command in pseudo-random slot (Slotted Aloha) and 1=respond to command in the defined slot. The sixth bit of field “7” defines the data type, wherein 0=NRZ response from endpoint and 1=Manchester encoded from the endpoint. The seventh and eighth bits of field “7” comprise the command target, wherein 00=the entire cell, 01=the group defined in EPID_HI (field “12”), 10=the group defined in EPID_LO (field “15”), and 11=the endpoint defined by EPID (including HI/LO), fields “12” through “15”. It should be noted that in single endpoint communications the command target (TGT) is set to 11 and the endpoint responds immediately after command processing with a minimum of 25 milliseconds between this frame and the endpoint response.
Fields “10” and “11” of the command and control frame define the first unsolicited message. Specifically, they define the slot number where the unsolicited messages (UMs) are to begin. Any UMs generated during the cell read would be reported in a pseudo-randomly selected slot after the slot defined here. If the value of this field is 0x0000, no UMs are sent from the endpoint.
Fields “22” and “23” of the command and control frame designate the response frequency for the endpoint. The response frequency is configured as 16 bit flags, identifying valid response frequencies for the endpoint. For example, if the response frequency has a value of 0x00C1 (bits, 7, 6, and 0 are set), the endpoint may respond on channel, 7, channel 6, or channel 0.
Fields “26” and “27” of the command and control frame provides the cyclic redundancy check (CRC). Specifically, fields “26” and “27” provide a 16-bit CRC. The CRC is preferably a polynomial defined as 0x1021. The CRC initialization value is 0x0000. CRC processing is performed most significant bit (MSB) first, and the final checksum is not inverted.
TABLE 7 Command Flags TXM TXM DLG FEC MDE MDE R R MSB LSB II.E.iii. System Protocol—Session Layer/Special Commands—Channel Frequency
TABLE 11 Flags R R R TxB UMC FN FEC MMI The flag mask field determines which flags are to be modified by this command. A “1” in any bit position means the associated value in the flags field should be modified. For example, A value of 0x17 (bits 4,2,1 and 0 are high) means that the values in the Flags field, bits 4, 2, 1, and 0 must be written to the associated flags in the endpoint. With regard to the flags field of Table 7, the first three bits are reserved for future growth while the fourth bit, TxB, determines if the endpoint is in transmit bubble up mode, the fifth bit, UMC, defines the unsolicited message channel, i.e., UMC=0 then transmit UMs on Channel 14, and UMC=1 then transmit UMs on channel 15. The sixth bit of the flags field defines the fixed network mode, wherein 0=this endpoint operates in Mobile/Handheld mode only and 1=this endpoint operates in mobile/handheld/fixed network mode. The seventh bit of the flags field defines the forward error correction, wherein 0=no forward error correction applied to the high power pulse and 1=forward error correction is applied to the high power pulse. The eighth bit of the flags field defines the multiple message integration, wherein 0=no multiple message integration applied to high power pulse and 1=multiple message integration applied to high power pulse.
In the basic system, there are five channels at a maximum 75% utilization for MDP responses. This gives an effective data rate of 42375 BPS or 5296 bytes per second or 21 blocks per second. Since the system is looking at a single block per meter, the system can support 21 new meters per second. The mobile then has a nominal range of 500 feet. This gives the system of about 175 meters in range at any given time, even in the densest specified systems. If the van is moving at 30 mph, the system gets 44 feet of new meters per second. In performing a geometric approximation, the result is about 12 new meters per second. So, the system can handle 21 new meters per second but can only get in the range of 10 to 12 meters per second. This allows for a full set of retries in a dense system. (This assumes the low 11.36363. KBPS data rate and the full 250 byte MDP, for smaller packets and with the higher data rate option, the situation is even better.
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