THE FOLLOWING SPECIFICATION PARTICULARLY DESCRIBES THE NATURE OF THE INVENTION

ANTI TAMPER DEVICE FOR ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN
ENERGY METER
A) TECHNICAL FIELD
[0001] The present invention generally relates to metering devices such as electrical energy meter or watt hour meter used in domestic and industrial applications to measure the electrical energy consumed in home and in industry. The present invention particularly relates to a tamper detection device used for sensing the tampering event in the energy meter. The present invention more particularly relates to an anti tamper device used for preventing the manipulation in energy consumption data to avoid error and fraudulent activity in billing process.
B) BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] An electric meter or energy meter is a device that measures the amount of electrical energy supplied to a residence or business. The most common type is more properly known as a (kilo)watt-hour meter or a joule meter. The most common unit of measurement on the electricity meter is the kilowatt-hour which is equal to the amount of energy used by a load of one kilowatt over a period of one hour, or 3,600,000 joules. The demand is normally measured in watts, but averaged over a period, most often a quarter or half hour.
[0003] The meters for measuring single phase energy are also available. It also provides capabilities like Maximum demand with date & time and kWh Backups. The modem

electricity meters operate by continuously measuring the instantaneous voltage (volts) and current (amperes) and finding the product of these two to give an instantaneous electrical power (watts) which is then integrated against time to compute the total energy used (in joules, kilowatt-hours etc). The meters fall into two basic categories, like electromechanical meter and electronic meter.
[0004] The most common type of electricity meter is the electromechanical induction meter. The electromechanical induction meter operates by counting the revolutions of an aluminum disc which is made to rotate at a speed proportional to the power. The number of revolutions is thus proportional to the energy usage. It consumes a small amount of power, typically around 2 watts.
[0005] The metallic disc is acted upon by two coils. One coil is connected in such a way that it produces a magnetic flux in proportion to the voltage and the other produces a magnetic flux in proportion to the current. This produces eddy currents in the disc and the effect is such that a force is exerted on the disc in proportion to the product of the instantaneous current and voltage. A permanent magnet exerts an opposing force proportional to the speed of rotation of the disc so that the rotation of the disc is stopped, when power is not supplied. As a result, the disc is rotated at a speed proportional to the power being used. The type of meter described above is used on a single-phase AC supply. The different phase configurations are formed by using the additional voltage and current coils.
[0006] Some of the electricity meters are solid state type and they display the power used on an LCD module, while the electronic meters can be read automatically. In addition to the measurement of the electrical power consumption, the solid state meters may also record other parameters of the load and supply such as maximum demand, power factor

and reactive power used etc. They may also include the electronic clock mechanisms to compute a value, rather than an amount, of electricity consumed, with the pricing varying of by the time of day, day of week, and seasonally
[0007] The AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) and RMR (Remote Meter Reading) describe various systems that allow meters to be checked by without the need to send a meter reading personnel out. This may be effectively achieved using the off-site metering technology. The electronic meter is placed at the junction point where all the connections originate, inaccessible to the end-user, and it relays the readings via the AMR technology to the utility.
[0008] The meters may be manipulated so as to make them under-register or even run backwards, effectively allowing usage of power without paying for it. There are several forms of tampering that are effectively done on inductive meters. The magnets above 0.5 tesla can saturate the magnetic circuits, causing the loss of registration. Some industry traditionally inserts rectifiers in light-bulb sockets to induce DC loads. The grounded disconnected or reversed terminals also cause misregistration. Some industries historically alternated the inductive motors and capacitive loads (such as arc-smelters) to alternately run the meters forward then backward.
[0009] Sometimes the cover of the meter is tampered to induce the malfunctioning of the meter to reduce the power consumption levels. The terminal cover is removed to interfere with the connections or to apply a bridge or to remove the case to interfere with the working of the meter. The internal pressure switches may be fit inside the case to detect the cover tampering event.

[0010] Sometimes the neutral supply to the meter is intermpted. A sensor may be fit to detect the voltage loss or alternatively to detect the imbalances in the live and neutral circuits or to detect the bridging.
[0011] A black box may be used to run the meter backwards. At present the electronic meters are provided with a circuit to indicate the reverse running of the energy meters.
[0012] In some cases the energy meter is completely by passed or tapped into the cutout or the wiring from a location which is far ahead of the meter location.
[0013] The anti-tamper techniques are well-known in the industry. The owner of the meter normally secures the meter against the tampering of the meters. The meters are usually sealed so that the connections and the mechanism may not be tampered without breaking the seal. The meters may also measure VAR-hours (the reflected load), neutral and DC currents (elevated by most electrical tampering), ambient magnetic fields, etc. Even simple mechanical meters may have mechanical flags that are dropped by magnetic tampering or large DC currents.
[0014] The old electromechanical meters may be replaced with solid-state ones to improve the meter accuracy. An added benefit is that the solid-state meters are more tamper resistant. They will register energy usage appropriately even if they are turned upside-down, because the solid state meters have less moving parts. With the advent of solid-state metering, the traditional means of tampering, as employed with mechanical meters, are waning. As the "eyes in the field" are reduced by AMR/AMI systems, the utilities can expect to see an increase in diversion by bypassing the meter. Proactively analyzing the meter data will help keep the problem in check.

[0015] The new computerized meters usually have counter-measures against the tampering. The Automated Meter Reading (AMR) meters often have sensors that may report the opening of the meter cover, the magnetic anomalies, the extra clock setting, the glued buttons, the reversed or switched phases etc. These features are normally present in computerized meters used in the regions especially where the tampering act is culturally accepted. The regulatory agencies permit the meters because they are more accurate for honest subscribers.
[0016] Even though the energy meters are provided with the tamper resistance facility, some fraud perpetrators bypass the meter, wholly or in part, to use the power without it being recorded at their individual metering unit. This kind of act normally causes an increase in neutral current at the meter, which is detected arid billed at normal rates by the standard tamper-resistant meters.
[0017] Even if the meter's neutral connector is completely disconnected, and the building's neutral is grounded to the phantom loop, causing an unsafe house or building, the metering operation at the substation may alert the operator towards the detected tampering event. The substations, interties and transformers normally have a high-accuracy meter for the area served. The power supply generation and distribution companies normally investigate the discrepancies between the total billed and the total generated values, in order to find and fix the power distribution problems. These types of investigations are an effective method of discovering the tampering event.
[0018] The introduction of advanced meters in residential areas has produced additional privacy issues that may affect even ordinary customers. These meters are often capable of recording energy usage very frequentiy, usually once in every 15 minutes or hour. In an IEEE research paper published in 1989, it was shown that readings of this sort can

reveal information about the electrical loads being used within the home. A more detailed and recent analysis of this issue was performed by the Illinois Security Lab, as discussed on the Attested Metering project website.
[0019] The US patent number 5239584 discloses a method and device for encrypting and authenticating data in energy meter. An algorithm is used to generate cipher text and an authentication field. The data contained in the message is encrypted and deciphered. One byte of cipher text is generated for every byte of plain text contained in the message. A four bit authentication field is generated using the last 4 bytes of cipher text, after generating all the cipher text. The message is then scanned for data fields which have been encrypted or are to be encrypted and the corresponding byte of cipher text is used to replace the message bytes. The encryption is accomplished by sending the cipher text instead of the message text. To decipher the message, the algorithm is operated in a reverse mode to replace the cipher text with the message text.
[0020] The US patent number 7089089 discloses an energy monitoring device. The device includes procedures for the secure communication of data. The energy monitoring device includes a public/private key pair to encrypt and/or digitally sign communications to allow the receivers of the communications to authenticate the communications to ensure that the device and/or communications have not been compromised. The energy monitoring device is further capable of communications via an ad-hoc "mesh" network, thereby facilitating communications among devices which are substantially inaccessible due to either physical or economic limitations.
[0021] Thus none of the prior art devices provide a fool proof anti tamper device for preventing the manipulation of the electrical power consumption data thereby

preventing the generation of error and fraudulent activity in the metering and billing process. Hence there is a need to develop an anti tamper device provided with a processor to avoid the manipulation of the meter reading and the billing data thereby avoiding the generation of error and fraudulent activity in the billing process of an energy meter.
C) OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
[0022] The primary object of the invention is to develop an anti tamper device to prevent the matupulation of energy consumption data using an algorithm thereby avoiding the generation of error and fraudulent activity in billing operation reliably and cheaply.
[0023] Another object of the invention is to develop an anti tamper device to report the actual energy consumption reading registered in the energy meter cheaply and reliably thereby preventing the generation of any intentional or unintentional error in reporting the power consumption data registered in the meter.
[0024] Yet another object of the invention is to develop an anti tamper device for energy meter to avoid any human intervention in reporting the registered energy consumption data to avoid the error in the billing process.
[0025] These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings

D) SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0026] The abovementioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed herein and which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.
[0027] The various embodiments of the present invention provide an anti tamper device and method for energy meter to prevent the manipulation of energy consumption data reliably and cheaply. The anti tamper device according to one embodiment of the present invention has a micro processor to execute an algorithm to encrypt the unique serial number of the energy meter, cumulative energy, tamper deatils and date information into a single 20 digit code. The encrypted 20 digit code is displayed on a display device like liquid crystal display (LCD) device along with the other display parameters in a cyclic manner.
[0028] The encrypted data is forwarded to a computer provided with a custom made software and installed at the user premises. The input 20 digit code is decrypted to retrieve the original data that includes the serial number of energy meter, registered cumulative energy level, tamper details ,date, etc. A customer database is updated with the decrypted and retrieved power consumption data.
[0029] According to another embodiment of the present invention, an anti tamper detection method is provided to encrypt the serial number of the energy meter, the cumulative energy level .tamper datails and date information into a single 20 digit code using an algorithm. The encrypted data is displayed on a display device along with the regular display meters in a cyclic manner. The encrypted data is automatically forwarded

to a user computer through network or wired or wireless communication devices. Sometimes the encrypted data may be manually input into the user computer. The data may be manually read or downloaded from the meter by attaching a device to the infra red serial port.
[0030] The encrypted data is input into the computer installed with a custom made software. The input encrypted data is decrypted to retrieve the original data including the serial number of the computer, the registered energy consumption level in the energy meter, tamper details and the date information, etc.TThe-Customer database is updated with the new data read from the meter.
[0031] Thus the various embodiments of the present invention provide an anti tamper device and method to prevent the tinkering in the energy meter. The energy meter prevents the generation of intentional or unintentional error in reporting the registered consumption level. The device avoids the manipulation of the registered power consumption data thereby preventing the generation of error between the billing data and the energy meter reading. The device improves the reliability of the billing process cheaply.
[0032] These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description.

E) BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0033] The other objects, features and advantages will occur to those skilled in the art from the following description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings in which:
[0034] FIGURE.l illustrates a functional block diagram of the anti tamper device for energy meter according to one embodiment of the present invention.
[0035] FIGURE. 2 illustrates flow chart explaining the operation of the anti tamper device according to one embodiment of the present invention.
[0036] Although the specific features of the present invention are shown in some drawings and not in others. This is done for convenience only as each feature may be combined with any or all of the other features in accordance with the present invention.
F) DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0037] In the following detailed description, a reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which the specific embodiments that may be practiced is shown by way of illustration. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the embodiments and it is to be understood that the logical, mechanical and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the embodiments. The following detailed description is therefore not to be taken in a limiting sense.

[0038] The various embodiments of the present invention provide an anti tamper device and method for energy meter to prevent the manipulation of energy consumption data using an algorithm reliably and cheaply. The anti tamper device according to one embodiment of the present invention has a micro processor to execute an algorithm to encrypt the unique serial number of the energy meter, the cumulative energy registered in the energy meter at any instant, the tamper details and date information into a single 20 digit code. The encrypted 20 digit code is displayed on a display device like liquid crystal display (LCD) device along with the other display parameters in a cyclic manner.
[0039] The encrypted data is forwarded to a computer installed at the user premises through a communication network such as internet, Ethernet, wide area local network, etc. The encrypted data may be forwarded to the user computer through wired or wireless communication systems. The encrypted data may be downloaded manually through a device attached to the Infra red (IR) serial port. Sometimes the displayed encrypted data may be manually read and input into the user computer. The user computer is installed with a custom made software to decode the input encrypted data. The input 20 digit code is decrypted to retrieve the original data that includes the serial number of computer, registered cumulative energy level, tamper details, date, etc. A customer database connected to the user computer is updated with the decrypted and retrieved power consumption data.
[0040] According to another embodiment of the present invention, an anti tamper detection method is provided to encrypt the serial number of the energy meter, the cumulative energy level, tamper details and date information into a single 20 digit code

using an algorithm. The encrypted data is displayed on a display device along with the regular display meters in a cyclic manner. The encrypted data is automatically forwarded to the user computer through a network. The encrypted data may be forwarded to the user computer through wired or wireless communication devices. Sometimes the encrypted data may be manually read and input into the user computer. The data may be manually downloaded from the meter by attaching a device to the infra red serial port.
[0041] The encrypted data is input into the computer installed with custom made software. The input encrypted data is decrypted to retrieve the original data including the serial number of the computer, the registered energy consumption level in the energy meter and the date information, etc. The Customer data base communicatively connected to the user computer is updated with new data read from meter.
[0042] Thus the various embodiments of the present invention provide an anti tamper device and mediod to prevent the tinkering in the energy meter using an algorithm. The energy meter prevents the generation of intentional or unintentional error in reporting the registered consumption level. The device avoids the manipulation of the registered power consumption data thereby preventing the generation of error between the billing data and the energy meter reading. The device improves the reliability of the billing process cheaply.
[0043] The FIG.l shows the functional block diagram of the anti tamper device for an energy meter according to one embodiment of the present invention. The device includes a microprocessor communicatively connected to the energy meter to retrieve the data like the unique serial number of the energy meter, the cumulative energy

consumption level registered in the energy meter at any instant, the tamper details, the date and the time information, etc. The microprocessor is installed with an algorithm to encrypt the retrieved unique serial number of the energy meter, the cumulative energy registered in the energy meter at any instant, the tamper details and the date information into a single 20 digit code. The encrypted 20 digit code is displayed on a display device like liquid crystal display (LCD) device along with the other display parameters in a cyclic
manner.
[0044] The encrypted data is automatically forwarded to a user computer through network. The encrypted data may be forwarded to the user computer through wired or wireless communication system. Sometimes the encrypted data may be manually read and input into the user computer. The network may be internet, ethernet, wide area network (WAN), Local area network (LAN), etc. The data may be manually downloaded from the meter and input into the user computer or Meter Reading Instrument by attaching a device to the infra red serial port.
[0045] The encrypted data is input into the user computer installed with custom made software. The input encrypted data is decrypted to retrieve the original data including the serial number of the computer, the registered energy consumption level in the energy meter, the tamper information and the date information, etc. The customer database communicatively connected to the user computer is updated with the retrieved data.
[0046] The FIG. 2 shows a flow chart explaining the operation of the anti tamper device for an energy meter. According to the anti tamper detection method, the unique serial number of the energy meter, the cumulative energy consumption level registered at any

instant in the energy meter, the tamper information and the date and the time information are collected by a micro processor. The collected data, including the unique serial number of the energy meter, the cumulative energy consumption level registered at any instant in the energy meter, the tamper details, the date information and the time information, are encrypted into a single 20 digit code using an algorithm installed in the micro processor.
[0047] The encrypted data is displayed on a display device along with the regular display parameters in a cyclic manner. The display device may be a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) device. The encrypted data is automatically forwarded to a user computer through a network. The encrypted data may be forwarded to the user computer through wired or wireless communication system. Sometimes the encrypted may also be manually read and input into the user computer. The network may be internet, Ethernet, WAN, LAN, etc. The data may be manually downloaded from the energy meter and input into the user computer through the infra red serial port or manually read.
[0048] The encrypted data is input into the user computer installed with custom made software. The input encrypted data is decrypted to retrieve the original data including the serial number of the computer, the registered energy consumption level in the energy meter, the tamper details and the date information, etc. The customer database communicatively connected to the user computer is updated with the retrieved data.
[0049] Thus the various embodiments of the present invention provide an anti tamper device and method to prevent the tinkering in the energy meter using an algorithm. The energy meter prevents the generation of intentional or unintentional error in reporting

the registered consumption level. The device avoids the manipulation of the registered power consumption data thereby preventing the generation of error between the billing data and the energy meter reading. The device improves the reliability of the billing process cheaply.
G) ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION
[0050] The various embodiments of the present invention provide an anti tamper device and method to prevent the tinkering in the energy meter reliably and cheaply using an algorithm. The energy meter prevents the generation of intentional or unintentional error in reporting the registered power consumption level efficiently and effectively. The device avoids the manipulation of the registered power consumption data thereby preventing the generation of error between the billing data and the actual energy meter reading. The device improves the reliability of the billing process cheaply.
[0051] Although the invention is described with various specific embodiments, it will be obvious for a person skilled in the art to practice the invention with some modifications. However, all such modifications are deemed to be within the scope of the claims.
[0052] It is also to be understood that the following claims are intended to cover all of the generic and specific features of the present invention described herein and all the statements of the scope of the invention which as a matter of language might be said to fall there between.

CLAIMS
WHAT IS CLAIMED IS :
1. An anti tamper detection device for energy meter, comprising:
Micro processor communicatively connected to energy meter and installed with algorithm to encrypt energy consumption data, unique serial number of energy meter, tamper details, date information and time information;
Display device coupled to said micro processor to receive said encrypted data and to display said received encrypted data; and
User computer communicatively connected to said micro processor to receive said encrypted data and installed with custom made software to decrypt said received encrypted data to retrieve energy consumption level, serial number of energy meter; tamper information, date information and time information.
2. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the micro processor
collects the unique serial number of the energy meter, the energy consumption
value registered at the energy meter, the tamper information the date information
and the time information from the energy meter.
3. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the microprocessor
encrypts the energy consumption data, the unique serial number of the energy

meter, the tamper information, the date information and the time information into a single 20 digit code using said algorithm.
4. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the said display device is a liquid crystal display device.
5. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the said display device displays the encrypted single 20 digit code in a scrolling display along with the other display parameter in a cyclic manner.
6. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the user computer is connected to said micro processor through a network
7. The anti tamper device according to claim 6, wherein the network is an internet.
8. The anti tamper device according to claim 6, wherein the network is an Ethernet.
9. The anti tamper device according to claim 6, wherein the network is an intranet.
10. The anti tamper device according to claim 6, wherein the network is a Local Area Network (LAN).
11. The anti tamper device according to claim 6, wherein the network is a Wide Area Network (WAN).

12. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the user computer is connected to the micro processor through a wired communication system.
13. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the user computer is connected to the micro processor through a wireless communication system.
14. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, further comprises a customer database communicatively connected to the user computer to store the details of the consumers of the electric power supply.
15. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the user computer decrypts the encrypted 20 digit code to retrieve the energy consumption level, the unique serial number of the energy meter, the tamper details, the date information and the time information.
16. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the user computer updates the database with said retrieved data including the energy consumption level, the unique serial number of the energy meter, the tamper information, the date information and the time information.
17. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the encrypted data may be downloaded and input into the user computer manually.
18. The anti tamper device according to claim 1, wherein the encrypted data may be read direcdy and input into the user computer manually.

19. The anti tamper method for energy meter for preventing manipulation of meter
reading, the method comprising;
Collecting unique serial number of energy meter, energy consumption level registered in energy meter, date information, tamper details and time information using micro processor;
Encrypting all said collected, unique serial number of energy meter, energy consumption level registered in energy meter, tamper information, date information and time information into single code using algorithm;
Decrypting encrypted code in user computer using custom made software to retrieve said unique serial number of energy meter, energy consumption data, tamper details, date information and time information; and
Displaying encrypted and decrypted data in display device.
20. The anti tamper method according to claim 19, wherein the micro processor
encrypts the collected unique serial number of energy meter, the energy
consumption level registered in the energy meter, the tamper details, the date
information and the time information into a single 20 digit code using said
algorithm.

21. The anti tamper method according to claim 19, wherein the encrypted data is
displayed on a display device along with the usual display parameters in a cyclic
manner.
22. The anti tamper method according to claim 19, wherein the display device is a Liquid Crystal Display device.
23. The anti tamper method according to claim 19, further comprising of forwarding the encrypted single 20 digit code to the user computer through a communication network.
24. The anti tamper method according to claim 23, wherein the communication network is internet.
25. The anti tamper method according to claim 23, wherein the conununication network is intranet.
26. The anti tamper method according to claim 23, wherein the communication network is Ethernet.
27. The anti tamper method according to claim 23, wherein the encrypted single 20 digit code is forwarded to the user computer through a wired communication system.

28. The anti tamper method according to claim 23, wherein the encrypted single 20
digit code is forwarded to the user computer through a wireless communication
system.
29. The anti tamper method according to claim 23, wherein the encrypted single 20
digit code is manually read and input into the user computer.
30. The anti tamper method according to claim 19, further comprising of updating a
database using the decrypted data.
31. The anti tamper method according to claim 30, wherein the database is a
customer database.