Final Project Report E3390 Electronic Circuits Design Lab Household Energy-Usage Data Collection Network (FM Demodulator)

Brian Lambson Andrew Hsu

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science degree May 12, 2008 Department of Electrical Engineering Columbia University

1. Executive Summary
Today, more and more consumers are looking to go green, and the practical tools that inform their decision-making are of increasing importance. One of the areas in which individual consumers impact the environment most is household electricity consumption. Tying these two ideas together, we set forth to design a low-cost household power-usage data collection network. The purpose of this system is to allow a homeowner to centrally meter energy data from all the home's outlets at once. Small power metering devices (referred to as "minimeters") can be attached to or built into each outlet in the home. Mini-meter data can then be transmitted to a central computer for processing via power-line communication network. A computer program outputs a spreadsheet that lists all the household energy data for the homeowner to peruse. All the technology necessary for such a system has been developed our challenge is to fit the pieces together for our specific needs. Considerations include the size, cost, and reliability of the devices. During the testing phase we broke two critical pieces of equipment with about a week to go and were unable to meet our project deadline. For presentation purposes, we modified our project goals and attempted to read data sent over the power lines with a homemade decoder. Power line modems send data using FM modulation just like the radio signal through the 120 V AC mains. A properly tuned receiver can decode the modulated signal and send the data to the computer. At the time of writing, we designed and tested the relevant components of the decoder but did not yet successfully receive a signal from the mains. In sum, we learned some important lessons regarding the proper usage of evaluation boards and like to think we could do better next time.

2. Block Diagrams, Design Targets, and Specifications

2.1 Mini-Meter (Not Completed)

2.2 Mains-Computer Interface

2.3 FM Demodulator

3. Component Descriptions
3.1 Coupling Interface and Filter
To draw the signal from the line into the FM modulator, we employed the AC coupling circuit and 72 kHz passive band-pass filter built into the broken ST7540 evaluation board. The only modification we made to the board was to disable the power supply circuit for the IC chip to avoid creating a short circuit and further damaging the board. Conveniently, built-in pins provided access to the RxIN signal that we were interested in. The couple/filter effectively removed AC signal from the output, but the FM signal we wished to demodulate was attenuated to the order of mV. The limiter (3.2) could not reliably amplify such a small high frequency signal, so we were unable to successfully test the complete FM demodulator circuit.

3.2 Limiter
The filtered 72 kHz signal must pass through a 5Vpp limiter to make sure that the signal has a constant strength. Constant signal strength is essential for the comparator to make meaningful and consistent decisions in the last processing step. The input passes through an opamp to output a 5 V square wave. The signal then passes through an RC filter. (Note that the transfer function of the filter is meaningless at high frequencies because of the resistor frequency response).

3.3 FM Slope Detector

The FM slope detector acts as a low-pass filter that attenuates signals above the center frequency of the signal (72 kHz) and passes those that are lower. To be effective, the center frequency must lie at a position of high slope within the frequency response of the filter. The signal is then rectified and filtered to produce a DC output that is inversely proportional to the signal frequency. We use an active low-pass filter followed by a diode rectifier in our slope detector. The values of all resistors and capacitors were found by guess and check because of the frequency distortion of the resistors at high frequencies. Tests showed that a 5Vpp, 72 kHz signal output a 1.19 V DC signal.

3.4 Comparator
The comparator takes the DC output from the slope detector and decides whether the corresponding frequency was above or below 72 kHz. Empirically, 1.19V was found to be the output of a 72 kHz signal. Signals above 1.19 V are output as a digital one and below 1.19 V a digital zero. The data outputs is a TTL level signal, which is sent to an RS-232 driver to be transmitted to the computer.

4. Bill of Materials
Part EVALST-7540 STEVAL-IPE003 EVALCOMMBOARD Kill-a-watt Lamp, wiring, outlets Total Cost Manufacturer ST ST ST P3 International University Hardware # 2 1 1 2 Cost 312.00 45.50 104.00 42.67 27.95 $532.12

(All costs were charged to Brian)

5. Health, Safety, and Environmental Issues

As far as environmental issues go, this project does not really have much if any effect on the environment. It draws a small bit of power from power outlets already in use, and does not produce any waste products. However, there are safety issues that had to be regarded with care with respect to the high voltage power outlets that were required. The circuit boards that were ordered were built to specifications which allowed them to operate when plugged into an outlet, but precautions were taken to prevent human contact with exposed circuitry as well as avoiding contact with charged capacitors even when the device was disconnected. The modem device had a plastic cover which prevents most accidental contact with the board, whereas the power meter had to be handled with care because it was exposed. Had it worked as a part of the final design, a plastic case would have been used for safety purposes during demonstration purposes. In addition, use of oscilloscope probes were limited because of the dangers it could have if it contacted a high voltage area of the circuitry. Other than high voltage precautions, standard precautions were taken during normal project activities such as soldering and handling circuit elements.

6. Gantt Chart

7. Criticisms
Andrew
As I have mentioned before, having this course as a two semester course would greatly increase the quality of planning the groups could do, as well as allow for a more finished and refined product. It also would have helped in our specific case because of time constrains caused by equipment failures. I also believe that having better collaboration with the biomedical or mechanical engineering department would greatly benefit the quality and design of projects as well as allow for greater creativity and feasibility. Personally, a friend of mine in the biomedical engineering department said that he would have loved to have me help their group do a number of signals processing and circuits related work because of my experience from my electrical engineering coursework.

Brian
That our project crawled to a disappointing finish had nothing to do with the lab itself, and the experience of designing a project from scratch was rewarding. I thought we had a good project idea, and anything but internally fried evaluation boards would have at least been moderately successful. In hindsight, I still feel like it would have been too easy just to buy more parts and hook up the boards like they were supposed to go at no risk. The main problem, I believe, was that we needed the GUI for the power meter so that it could have been preprogrammed to accept the signals we were trying to send to it when it broke. Later, we did track down the GUI, and it appeared fairly comprehensive. I cant be sure, but I think that would have made the difference for us. As Andrew and others have mentioned, a full-year lab has a number of bonuses. One I want to add is that only the most driven second semester seniors are going to give the design lab 100%, whereas earlier we would have approached the projects with a little more spirit.