Universal serial bus enhances virtual instrument-based distributed power monitoring

The universal serial bus (USB) links a distributed multicircuit power monitoring system to its virtual instrument (VI) host computer. The distributed interconnection provides enhanced system performance at reduced cost, since the USB host controller is a standard function of up-to-date personal computers (PCs) and low-cost high-performance USB hardware is readily available. The 12 Mb/s, recently updated to 480 Mb/s, transfer rate of the USB improves data transmission capability and boosts the real-time performance of the whole VI monitoring system when compared with conventional serial communications. In addition, the USB dynamic attachment and removal feature allows each meter to be connected or disconnected from its VI host computer without any system interruption. However, the complete VI solutions are not currently supported by any USB hosts and devices. This paper presents an innovative USB VI strategy to implement integrated power monitoring applications and shows its superior performance.