Futuristic Smart Energy Meter-Design Based on Embedded Perspective

With the advancement of smart grid technologies for better electric power delivery a smart energy meter is no longer a simple energy measuring device, but has additional functions such as smart appliance control, bidirectional communication between user and utility enabling user integration to the grid etc. This paper studies about the computational needs of a futuristic smart energy meter and presents performance analysis of such an energy meter on a single core and multi-core microcontroller platform with Real - Time Operating System (RTOS). The various applications in the futuristic smart energy meter are identified, grouped into different classes viz., sensing, computation, communication and storage and implemented as modular tasks. The futuristic smart energy meter implementation is done in LPC 1768 based mbed microcontroller and LPC 4357 based MCB 4357 board using FreeRTOS. The performance of these implementations are compared and analysed using Tracealyzer and real time debugger. This study will help in understanding the computational needs of a futuristic smart energy meter and also in the design of a best fit and light weight RTOS for smart energy meters.