2017 International Conference on Intelligent Computing,Instrumentation and Control Technologies (ICICICT)
Development of IOT Based Solution for Monitoring
and Controlling of Distribution Transformers
A.Ajitha
Department of EEE
Anurag group of Institutions
Hyderabad, India
tirumuruajitha@gmail.com
Abstract— This paper presents a new IoT (Internet of Things)
framework for condition monitoring and controlling of larger
number of distribution transformers as they are one of the
influential and important equipment in the power distribution
network. Great numbers of distribution transformers are
required to distribute power over a wide area. That being the
case, it is essential to keep an eye on its condition for satisfactory
operation of any distribution network. This paper presents a
method of implementing LoRa (Long-range) technology for
monitoring and diagnosing the condition of distribution
transformers using specified sensors/devices. This facilitates
recording key operation indicators like voltage, load current,
winding temperatures, oil temperatures, oil level in conservator
and breather silica gel status of each distribution transformer in
the range of 10km using LoRa modules. This data is sent to IoT
platform using LoRa gateway. If a parameter of any distribution
transformer exceeds the predefined value/level, alerts will be
received on the developed web application showing the particular
transformer’s location, to take necessary action. Commands of
controlling transformer’s operation can be issued from the web
application itself. Selected advantages of this method are like,
continuous monitoring of DTs, timely alerts to rectify the
abnormality if any, thereby extending the lifetime of distribution
transformers, simplifying the troubleshooting in the distribution
network and providing customers with proper service.
Keywords—Distribution transformers; condition Monitoring;
controlling; Internet of things; Dragino LoRa; Lora gateway.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical power systems are real-time energy
delivering systems which means that power is generated,
transmitted and supplied the moment it is required [1]. A
modern electric power system component includes
transformers which raise or lower the voltages as needed and
particularly distribution transformers lower the voltage to the
level needed for the consumer equipment [2].
Transmitting power at higher voltages reduces cost of the
conductor, improves voltage regulation in addition to line loss
reduction. Hence in practice, power is transmitted at higher
voltages [3]. The low level voltages are stepped up to higher
by transformers at the sending end. However high voltage
power may not be distributed to the consumers directly, so it is
to be stepped down to the desired levels using distribution
transformers. Distribution transformer plays a vital role in the
power distribution network.
978-1-5090-6106-8/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Dr.T.Anil Kumar
Department of EEE
Anurag group of Institutions
Hyderabad, India
thalluruanil@gmail.com
Distribution transformers operate 24 hours a day. Any
failure of these transformers is bound to cause great
inconvenience to large number of consumers and also huge
financial losses to the utilities. It is therefore extremely
important to avoid transformer failures [4]. The long life of
distribution transformers can be guaranteed if they are
operated under the rated conditions.
Distribution transformers are not only important electrical
equipment but also costlier. Frequent failures of transformers
will lead to big revenue loss to power distributors. In India,
more than 40% distribution losses are being reported by the
states in the recent years. Failure of distribution transformers
is one of the major causes for this high distribution loss.
Unfortunately in India the failure rate of these transformers is
around 25% per annum, which is not favorably comparable to
international norms of 1-2%. Proper maintenance and
continuous monitoring of distribution transformers and early
& prompt correction of any abnormal functioning will increase
the life of the transformer and saves heavy investment,
frequent replacements to the utilities. Hence there is a need
for continuous monitoring and controlling of distribution
transformers [5].
Important reasons for the failure of distribution
transformers includes Overloading, low transformer oil level,
unbalance loading, over heating of transformer oil , defective
breather and consequent ingress of moisture [6].
Distribution Transformers are generally not recommended
for continuous overloading. However, overloading for a short
duration cannot be avoided. In case of overloading the
additional loss generates more heat, which effects the burning
of winding insulation, causing ultimate failure of the
transformer. Unbalanced loading of distribution transformer
will result in increased copper losses [7].
The temperature of the transformer oil increases with the
loading, consequently the volume of the oil too. Transformers
breath-in and breath-out as per the loading conditions during
which the oil level in the conservator varies accordingly. In
order to preserve the dielectric properties of transformer oil,
the air entering the transformer should be free from moisture
and practically it is achieved using silica gel. The colour of the
silica gel crystals is dark blue and in the long run its colour
turns to pink as it absorbs moisture which necessitates its
replacement for effective working of the transformer [8].
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Oil in the transformer provides cooling and insulation.

These processes will get affected if the oil level in the
conservator is less than the required level [9].
Hence all these parameters are to be monitored
continuously in order to evaluate the transformer’s
performance and also to avoid inconvenience caused from
unexpected failure.
Presently distribution transformers are monitored
manually where; a person visits the transformer site at regular
intervals to record parameters of importance which reflects
health of transformers. But this method of monitoring
distribution transformers doesn’t represent information about Fig.1
overloads that occur occasionally and also regarding
temperatures of oil and windings [10]. Receiving information
of important parameters like voltage, current and temperatures the Arduino Uno board. Each digital pin on the Uno board
continuously from distribution transformers will help the can be used as an input or output, with different functions like
operating engineers with the monitoring of the electric pinMode(), digitalWrite(), and digitalRead().
distribution grid, as the parameters can provide useful
information about the health of transformers and this The Software (IDE):
definitely increase the life time of the transformers and
The Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
maintains the stability of grid [11].
is a special program that allows writing sketches for the
In this paper an Internet of things (IoT) based solution is Arduino board in a simple language modeled after the
proposed for better monitoring and controlling of distribution Processing language. The upload button on the IDE is used to
transformers by monitoring voltage, current, oil temperature, load the sketch to the board.
winding temperature and status of silica gel in breather were
Dragino Lora shield:
done by using different sensors and using LoRaWAN
technology. LoRaWAN is low power wide area network Fig.3. shows the Dragino LoRa (Long Range) Shield on an
which is featured to support secure bidirectional Arduino shield form factor, is a long range transceiver that is
communication for Internet of Things (IoT) which may based on open source library. Using this LoRa Shield, data can
include large networks with millions and millions of be transmitted to extremely long ranges of 15-20km with low
devices[12]. data-rates of 0.3kbps to 50kbps. LoRa provides ultra-long
range spread spectrum communication and has high
IoT connects systems, sensors and actuator instruments to
interference immunity and uses minimum power [15].
the broader Internet. It is an emerging paradigm of Internet
connected things that allow the physical objects or things to Features of Dragino Lora shield includes its compatibility
connect, interact and communicate with one another [13]. with different Arduino boards like UNO, Mega and Due,
consumes less power, operating in frequency bands of
Using IoT technology key parameters are recorded with
915MHz/868MHz/433MHz and has an external antenna via I-
different sensors and are monitored continuously. The data is
Pex connector.
received at the control centre through the LoRaWAN and, in
the reverse direction, the WAN undertake the instruction Lora gateway:
communications from control centres to the devices/nodes.
A gateway is a node/router that connects two networks of
different protocols. Gateways are connected to the network
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS server via standard IP connections [12].
Fig.1 shows the IoT framework of monitoring and Fig.4. shows a Multiconnect conduit gateway used which
controlling number of distribution transformers using LoRa have a range of 16km and packet data of 100Mbps downlink
modules and LoRaWAN technology. and 50Mbps uplink. It comes with (1) Multiconnect mcard
that supports widerange of communication protocols including
A. Materials: Wi-Fi and (2) Multiconnect mdot which is able to connect
The Arduino Platform: low-data rate devices to the internet using LoRaWAN
technology.
Arduino platform comprises of two parts: the Arduino
board and the Arduino IDE. Arduino board is a hardware to
work on for building objects, where as Arduino IDE is the
software used to create a sketch (a little computer program)
that can be uploaded to the Arduino board [14].
The Arduino Uno board:
The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the
ATmega328 which has 14 digital input/output pins of which 6
pins can be used as PWM outputs,6 analog inputs [14]. The
Fig.3.Dragino Lora
operating voltage of the Arduino board is 5v.It has a flash Fig.2.Arduino UNO
memory of 32KB and 1Kb of EEPROM memory.Fig.2 shows

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 2017 International Conference on Intelligent Computing,Instrumentation and Control Technologies (ICICICT)
B. Sensors Used
The measuring parameters considered, to monitor the
distribution transformers are voltage, current, oil temperature,
winding temperature and status of silica gel in breather, which
is done by using following sensors.
Voltage sensing circuit is shown in Fig.5. Voltage is
measured using a 230v/9v potential transformer (PT) whose
output is converted to required dc with a bridge rectifier. A
capacitor of 100uf 25v is employed to ripple out the rectifier
output. The DC voltage obtained is still high which is around
15.5v to give to Arduino board operating at 5v. So, a potential
divider circuit with two resistors of 1/4w with10K and 6.5K is
used to reduce the voltage to 5v which is given to the analog
input pin of Arduino through the Dragino Lora shield.
Current is measured using Allegro ACS712 Hall effect
sensor which provides an economical and precise way of
sensing AC and DC currents. This sensor works on the basis
of Hall-effect, which was discovered by Dr. Edwin Hall. The
Allegro Hall effect sensor is as shown in Fig.6 which has 3
pins, namely Vcc, Output, and Ground.
For measuring oil and winding temperatures LM 235
temperature sensor is used and is as shown in Fig.7.The
LM235 is precision temperature sensor which can be easily
calibrated. It operates over a í40°C to 125°C temperature
range. The three pins of LM235 temperature sensor are Vcc,
output and ground.
A colour sensor named TCS230 is used to know the status
of silica gel in the transformer’s breather. The TCS230 is a
programmable colour sensor or colour light-to-frequency
converter that combines configurable silicon photodiodes and
a current-to-frequency converter on single monolithic CMOS
integrated circuit. TCS230 sensor is as shown in the Fig.8.
The oil level in the conservator tank is measured using an
ultrasonic sensor that measures the distance to an object using
sound waves and is shown in Fig.9. It sends out a sound wave
at a specific frequency and listens for that sound wave to
bounce back. By recording the time duration between the
sound wave being generated and the sound wave bouncing
back, it is possible to calculate the distance between the sonar
sensor and the object. The sensor has four pins namely trig,
echo, Vcc and ground.
C. Technology Used:
In this paper distribution transformers are monitored and
controlled using LoRa modules and LoRaWAN (LoRa wide
area network) which are referred under Internet of Things
(IoT) technology. IoT is a network of smart devices that are
embedded with sensors, actuators and network connectivity
that enables them to collect and exchange data.
Fig.4. LoRa Gateway Fig.5.Voltage sensing circuit
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Fig.6.Current sensor Fig.7.LM 235
IoT Platform (Cloud):
IoT platforms are the central piece in the Internet of Things
architecture that connect the real and the virtual worlds and
enable communication between objects. IOT platform consists
of 8 important building blocks: Connectivity & normalization,
device management, database, processing & action
management, analytics, visualization, additional tools, and
external interfaces [16]. Number of studies witnessed IOT
application server on cloud platform was cost effective in
maintenance and allow fast deployment as it uses application
program interfaces(API) provided by cloud platform[17] [18].
LoRaWAN:
It is a network protocol which support bi-directional
communication between things in a regional, national or
global network. These networks are in star- topology in which
gateways acting as a bridge relays messages between end-
devices and a network server.
In the proposed method, data is to be collected from
number of transformers in a region for which LoRaWAN
(LoRa wide area network) is used. It also consists of IoT
devices that have unique identities and are capable of
performing remote sensing, monitoring and actuating tasks.
These devices are capable of interacting with one another
directly or indirectly. Data collection is performed locally or
remotely via centralized servers or cloud based applications.
These devices may be actuating devices or data collecting
devices. Actuating devices are those to which actuators are
connected like relays, whereas data collecting devices are
attached with various sensing devices like temperature sensor,
light sensor etc., [19].
III. BLOCKDIAGRAM AND DESCRIPTION
The block diagram shown in Fig.10 gives a clear picture
of the work. The intension is to get parameters data from
distribution transformers for their monitoring and controlling.
For this we are using a potential transformer with bridge
rectifier and potential divider circuits to measure voltage, A
Hall effect current sensor for measuring current, two
temperature sensors, an ultrasonic sensor and a colour sensor
TCS230.These sensors are connected to Arduino
Fig.8.Colour sensor Fig.9.Ultrasonic sensor
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Fig.10.Block diagram
microcontroller which can be placed at different transformer’s
location. The data sensed by the arduino at different locations,
is transmitted to cloud server using Dragino Lora shield and a
LoRa gateway which is placed in the substation. Fig11 shows
functional diagram of data transmission between nodes and the
server.
For a lora module to send data and a gateway to receive
data they have to be registered on the IoT platform with
unique identities. The data from all nodes/devices in the range
is received by the gateway in the form of RF packets. Each RF
packet contains unique MAC address and the data. Based on
the MAC address present in the received data packet the
gateway will identify the device. Then the gateway which is
configured with Wi-Fi sends the data to IoT platform (cloud).
A web application is created on the IoT platform with
monitoring and controlling features. When any parameter of a
transformer is abnormal, an alert is received on the web page,
so that a command to control the operation of particular
transformer can be given through the same platform. When a
command is issued, based on the MAC address gateway will
transmit the command to respective transformer and the
command will get executed by the arduino microcontroller
with the help of actuators.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The setup of all the sensors connected to Dragino lora
module on Arduino microcontroller is as shown in Fig.12
Gateway and the nodes registered on the IoT platform
with unique IDs and communication is established between
them to exchange data. The code for sensing parameters is
uploaded to microcontroller.
Fig.11
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Fig.12 Sensors connected to microcontroller through Lora shield
On execution, microcontroller (Arduino Uno) reads data
from different sensors and displayed on serial monitor. The
data from nodes is transmitted to server continuously through
the gateway. Data sensed at one transformer viewed on the
arduino IDE is as shown in Fig.13.
Web application shown in Fig.14 is so designed that it
contains an admin page and user page with separate login
credentials. Administrator creates login credentials for each
substation and is given to respective authority, who manages
each distribution transformer in the area. The data received for
one of the transformers is represented in TABLE I indicating
the abnormal current value. Alert received for the violation of
current limits and hence the command given to control the
transformer operation is executed and the message of
operation control is shown in Fig15.
CONCLUSION
The IoT-based solution for monitoring and controlling of
distribution transformers is quite easy and effective compared
to manual monitoring method. The paper focuses on
transmitting real time data from each transformer to IoT
platform using LoRa (Long Range) modules. Selected
advantages of this method are like, continuous monitoring of
DTs, timely alerts to rectify the abnormality if any, there by
extending the lifetime of distribution transformers, simplifying
Fig.13.Data sensed by the microcontroller
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Fig.14 Web application
the trouble shooting in distribution network and providing
continuity of power supply to the consumer. This new IoT
based framework will result in receiving alerts on the web
application for any violations in the rated values of
parameters, so that an immediate action can be taken to avoid
any dangerous failures in the distribution network.
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Fig.15.Response received for the given command

[17] F. Longo, D. Bruneo, S. Distefano, G. Merlino, and A. Puliafito,
“Stack4things: an openstack-based framework for iot,” in Proc.
TABLE I Showing values of the parameters monitored International Conference on Future Internet of Things and Cloud,
Aug. 2015.
S. Voltage Current Oil Winding Oil Silica gel [18] G. Merlino, D. Bruneo, S. Distefano, F. Longo, and A. Puliafito,
No (V) (A) temperature temperature level status “Enabling mechanisms for cloud-based network virtualization in
(°C) (°C) (cm) iot,” in Proc. IEEE 2nd World Forum on Internet of Things, Dec.
1. 5 1.02 30 30 21 Unsaturated 2015.
2. 5 1.1.02 30 28 24 Unsaturated
3. 5 1.02 29 28 20 Unsaturated [19] http://www.electricaltechnology.org/2016/07/internet-of-things-
4. 5 1.02 29 28 18 Unsaturated iot-and-its-applications-in-electrical-power-industry.html
5. 5 1.5 29 28 18 Unsaturated
6. 4.9 1.02 29 28 18 Unsaturated
7. 4.98 1.02 30 30 18 Unsaturated
8. 5 1.02 31 28 18 Unsaturated
9. 5 1.02 30 28 18 Unsaturated

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