Patent ID: 8327049

Claim:
An electrical process interface device for provision in a low control and protection level of a Substation Automation or Distribution Automation system and comprising: a process interface unit for interfacing the electrical process at said low control and protection level and having a number of parallel data connections on which I/O data related to control and protective devices on at least one higher control and protection level may be transmitted, and a signal conversion unit connected to said data connections and arranged to packet data of the data connections according to a communication standard used by control and protective devices on said at least one higher control and protection level for allowing said data to be directly transmitted between the electrical interface device on said low control and protection level and at least one other device on higher control and protection levels, wherein the communication standard provides a series of elements (LD, LN 1 , LN 2 , LN 3 , DO 1 , DO 2 , DO 3 , DO 4 , DO 5 , DO 6 , DA 1 , DA 2 , DA 3 , DA 4 , DA 5 , DA 6 ) hierarchically linked to each other and including a device related element (LD), a number of function elements (LN 1 , LN 2 , LN 3 ) linked to the device related element (LN) and a number of data provision elements (DO 1 , DO 2 , DO 3 , DO 4 , DO 5 , DO 6 , DA 1 , DA 2 , DA 3 , DA 4 , DA 5 , DA 6 ) linked to the function elements and the signal conversion unit provides a structuring of the device functionality according to said communication standard and being provided as mechanically separable, replaceable hardware modules interconnected via an inter-module bus, said modules implementing functionality related to the function related elements (LN 1 , LN 2 , LN 3 ) of the standard and including a communication module for communicating with other devices of the system via a computer communication network and at least one I/O module being connected to at least one of said data connections, where said communication module includes a control entity providing a device related element (LN) of the communication standard for the device, common function elements (LN 1 , LN 2 ) of the device and at least one function element (LN 3 ) associated with functions provided by all the I/O modules wherein all I/O modules providing data related functions include data provision elements (DA 3 , DA 4 , DA 5 , DA 6 ) according to the standard and being associated with a corresponding function element (LN 3 ) in the communication module and wherein the communication standard is a standard such as IEC 61850.