Application US20060085147 Smart Cities: Edge Computing

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Application US20060085147

Published 2006-04-20

Automated Utility Meter Reading System With Variable Bandwidth Receiver

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for Automated Meter Reading (AMR) systems for determining quantities of a consumed utility product including electric, gas, and water service, using wireless data transfer. To compensate for the frequency drifts of the transmitters, these methods and apparatus, with minimum pre-processing of the received data, allow for on-the-fly adjustability of receiver bandwidth by merely changing a pre-calculated weighting function. As such, it is possible to use a fixed size Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), or in particular a fixed N-point Fast Fourier Transform, for signals of different bandwidths.

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9 Independent Claims

1. In a utility meter reading system having multiple utility meters wirelessly transmitting utility meter data to a mobile or fixed wireless receiver, an adjustable bandwidth automated meter reading system, comprising: an encoder-receiver-transmitter (ERT) connected to each of the utility meters, wherein the ERT is configured to receive and wirelessly transmit utility metering data with respect to consumption of at least one utility resource; and a mobile or fixed data collection unit comprising a receiver and a signal processing resource, wherein the receiver is configured to wirelessly receive the transmitted utility metering data, and wherein the signal processing resource is configured for performing N-point Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), wherein the data collection unit: stores the received data into an M×N long buffer, where M is an integer; multiplies the buffered utility meter data by a window function, wherein the window function contains no zeros, one zero, or a plurality of zeros depending on how much the bandwidth is to be adjusted; partitions the multiplied data into M equal segments, where each segment has N points; adds similarly positioned points of all the segments together such that the most significant points of all the M segments are added together, the second most significant points of all the segments are added together, and likewise adds together other similarly situated points of the segments; and performs N-point FFT on the N-point results of the additions to enable the adjustable bandwidth meter reading system to carry out signal processing on narrow bandwidth data to broadband data up to M×N points long.
3. An adjustable bandwidth automated wireless utility meter reading system, comprising: a transmitter connected to the utility meter; and a receiver; wherein the receiver includes an N-point Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) signal processing resource configured to: receive the utility meter data provided by the transmitter; store the received data into an M×N long buffer; multiply the buffer data by a window function, wherein the window function contains no zeros, one zero, or a plurality of zeros depending on how much the bandwidth is to be adjusted; partition the multiplied data into M equal segments, where each segment has N points; add similarly positioned points of all the segments together to form an N-point result, such that the 1^st, (N+1)^th, (2N+1)^th, . . . , [(M−1)N+1)]^thpoints of the buffered data are added together, the 2^nd, (N+2)^th, (2N+2)^th, . . . , [(M−1)N+2)]^thpoints are added together, the 3^rd, (N+3)^th, (2N+3)^th, . . . , [(M−1)N+3)]^thpoints are added together, up to and including N^th, (N+N)^th, (2N+N)^th, . . . , [(M−1)N+N)]^thpoints of the buffered data; and perform N-point FFT on the N-point results of the additions, which enables the utility meter reading system to carry out signal processing on any data of up to M×N points long.
4. A wireless utility data communication system for automatic utility meter reading, the data communication system comprising: a receiver for receiving encoded utility meter data; and a signal processing facility with a mathematical transformation capability, wherein the signal processing facility is configured or programmed to: read the received utility meter data into a buffer; mathematically manipulate the buffered utility meter data, wherein the mathematical manipulation comprises multiplication of the buffer data by a weighting function; partition the manipulated utility meter data into segments; combine the segmented and partitioned utility meter data; and mathematically transform the combined utility meter data.
7. (canceled)
11. In a utility meter reading system having multiple utility meters wirelessly transmitting utility meter data to a wireless receiver, a combination of elements for providing an adjustable bandwidth receiver comprising: a step for receiving utility meter data from at least one of the multiple utility meters; a step for manipulating the received utility meter data; a step for parsing the manipulated data into segments; a step for combining the segmented data; and a step for performing mathematical transformation on the combined data, wherein the step for performing mathematical transformation on the combined data comprises performing Fast Fourier Transform on the combined data.
15. (canceled)
16. An adjustable bandwidth wireless data communication method for use with an automated utility meter data reading system, comprising: receiving the utility meter data; storing the received utility meter data into a buffer; mathematically manipulating the stored data by multiplying the buffer data with a weighting function; partitioning the manipulated data into segments; combining the partitioned data by adding the partitioned data together point-by-point; and mathematically transforming the combined data through Fourier Transformation.
21. A wireless automated utility meter data reading system, comprising: a means for receiving the utility meter data; a means for storing the received utility meter data; a means for mathematically manipulating the stored data, wherein the mathematical manipulation comprises multiplication of the stored data by a weighting function; a means for partitioning the manipulated data into segments; a means for combining the partitioned data; and a means for mathematically transforming the combined data, wherein the means for mathematically transforming the combined data comprises performing Fast Fourier Transform on the combined data.
22. An adjustable bandwidth wireless data communication method for use with an automated utility meter data reading system, comprising: receiving the utility meter data; sampling or digitizing the received data storing the sampled or digitized data into an M×N long buffer; multiplying the buffer data by a weighting function; partitioning the data into M groups, where each group includes N points; adding together the similarly positioned points of all the segments to form an N-point result, wherein each n^thpoint of the N-point result, where n=1, 2, 3, . . . , N, is computed using: $\sum_{m = 1}^{M} [(m - 1) N + n]; and$ performing Fast Fourier Transformation on the N-point addition result.