Claims:1. A method to facilitate real-time operation of at least one equipment of a power station, in augmented reality, said augmented reality provided by a user system, the method comprising:
receiving an image frame captured by a digital imaging unit of a user equipment of the user system;
detecting, from the image frame, an optical machine readable information code specific for each equipment; and
providing real-time equipment status, to the user equipment, based on the specific optical machine readable information code,
wherein the user equipment is integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to receive the real-time status of each equipment of the power station.
2. The method as clamed in claim 1, further comprising providing to the user equipment, operation steps for a specific equipment of the power station, according to the real-time equipment status.
3. The method as clamed in claim 2, further comprising providing a remote user equipment, a real-time feed and/or live display of the operation steps performed on the specific equipment of the power station.
4. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the operation steps are provided after validation of the preceding operation step, said validation received from SCADA.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the real-time equipment status is updated within a time span of 12-15 seconds from SCADA.
6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the optical machine readable information code detected from the image frame is a QR code or a bar code.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein an equipment ID corresponding to the optical machine readable information code of each equipment is linked with corresponding SCADA equipment ID.
8. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein operation steps are provided to isolate the equipment under maintenance.
9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user equipment is preferably a tablet or a mobile.
10. An augmented reality user system to facilitate real-time operation of at least one equipment of a power station, the system configured to:
receiving an image frame captured by a digital imaging unit of a user equipment of the user system;
detecting, from the image frame, an optical machine readable information code specific for each equipment;
providing real-time equipment status, to the user equipment, based on the specific optical machine readable information code;
wherein the user equipment is integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to receive the real-time status of each equipment of the power station.
11. The user system as clamed in claim 10, further configured to provide the user equipment, operation steps for a specific equipment of the power station, according to the real-time equipment status.
12. The user system as clamed in claim 11, further configured to provide a remote user equipment, a real-time feed and/or live display of the operation steps performed on the specific equipment of the power station.
13. The user system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the operation steps are provided after validation of the preceding operation step, said validation received from SCADA.
14. The user system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the real-time equipment status is updated within a time span of 12- 15 seconds from SCADA.
15. The user system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the optical machine readable information code detected from the image frame is a QR code or a bar code.
16. The user system as claimed in claim 10, wherein an equipment ID corresponding to the information code of each equipment is linked with a corresponding SCADA equipment ID.
17. The user system as claimed in claim 10, wherein operation steps are provided to isolate the equipment under maintenance.
18. The user system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the user equipment is preferably a tablet or a mobile.
, Description:FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention pertains to Extra High Voltage (EHV) substations in general, and, more particularly, to augmented reality based operating management system for EHV substations.

BACKGROUND
All Extra High Voltage (EHV) substations consist of multiple equipment such as transformers, circuit breakers, isolators, earth switch and capacitors to name a few. To maintain the quality/health of equipment & lines, maintenance activity is carried out periodically. All EHV equipment are maintained according to a set schedule, equipment or lines under maintenance is being isolated from power system & earthed to ensure safety of the maintenance crew on site. Personnel at the power station carry out multiple operations to isolate the equipment electrically from the live system. These operations need to be performed in a particular sequence; failing which it could result in a wrong operation and can severely damage assets and fatally harm the site crew. This process being manual in nature, probability of mistakes while performing these operations is high. The system being complex and the number of procedures to be performed being more, the procedure is liable to faults like bypassing of interlocks.
Thus there is a need for a real-time operation management system of a power station assisting onsite personnel for correct operation of the equipment of power stations, thereby ensuring safety of personnel and correct operation of equipment in the power station with a real-time check for steps therein.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the present invention. It is not intended to identify the key/critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present a concept of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to a more detailed description of the invention presented later.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method to facilitate real-time operation of equipment of a power station to a shift engineer, in augmented reality, wherein the user equipment is integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to receive the real-time status of each equipment of the power station.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method to facilitate real-time operation of equipment of a power station, to a shift engineer in augmented reality, providing operation steps for the specific equipment of the power station, according to the real-time equipment status.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a method to facilitate real-time operation of equipment of a power station, to a shift engineer in augmented reality, providing remote user equipment, a real-time feed and/or live display of the operation steps performed on the specific equipment of the power station.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method to facilitate real-time operation of equipment of a power station, to a shift engineer in augmented reality, wherein the operation steps are provided after receiving validation from SCADA, of the preceding operation step.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method to facilitate real-time operation of equipment of a power station, to a shift engineer in augmented reality, wherein the real-time equipment status is updated from SCADA within a time span of 12-15 seconds.
In accordance with an aspect of the present disclosure, is to provide a method to facilitate real-time operation of at least one equipment of a power station, to a user in augmented reality, said augmented reality provided by a user system, the method comprising receiving an image frame captured by a digital imaging unit of a user equipment of the user system, detecting, from the image frame, an optical machine readable information code specific for each equipment and providing real-time equipment status, to the user equipment, based on the specific optical machine readable information code, wherein the user equipment is integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to receive the real-time status of each equipment of the power station.
Yet another aspect, is to provide an augmented reality user system to facilitate real-time operation of at least one equipment of a power station, the system configured to receiving an image frame captured by a digital imaging unit of a user equipment of the user system, detecting, from the image frame, an optical machine readable information code specific for each equipment and providing real-time equipment status, to the user equipment, based on the specific information code, wherein the user equipment is integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to receive the real-time status of each equipment of the power station.
Other aspects, advantages, and salient features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses exemplary embodiments of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS
The above and other aspects, features and advantages of the embodiments of the present disclosure will be more apparent in the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Figure 1 illustrates a block diagram giving an overall system overview, showing the implementation of the SCADA, the equipment of the power substation and the AR based operation management system.
Figure 2 illustrates a flowchart of the working of the augmented reality based user system, according to one implementation of the present invention.
Figure 3 (a) illustrates operation steps to be performed on an equipment of a power station, being displayed on a user equipment.
Figure 3 (b) illustrates the optical machine readable information code specific for each equipment of the power station.
Figure 4 illustrates a QR code and a barcode specific to each equipment of the power station.
Figure 5 illustrates the real-time equipment status displayed on a user equipment according to one implementation of the present invention.
Figure 6 illustrates equipment code according to one implementation of the present invention.
Figure 7 illustrates the overall working of the AR based operating management system according to one implementation of the present invention.
Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and may have not been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figure may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. Throughout the drawings, it should be noted that like reference numbers are used to depict the same or similar elements, features, and structures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of various embodiments of the present disclosure as defined by the claims and their equivalents. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the various embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions may be omitted for clarity and conciseness.
The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of various embodiments of the present disclosure is provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the present disclosure as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
It is to be understood that the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to "a component surface" includes reference to one or more of such surfaces.
All terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which various embodiments belong. Further, the meaning of terms or words used in the specification and the claims should not be limited to the literal or commonly employed sense, but should be construed in accordance with the spirit of the disclosure to most properly describe the present disclosure.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular various embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of various embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms "a," "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising" used herein specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, members, components, and/or groups thereof, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, members, components, and/or groups thereof. Also, Expressions such as "at least one of," when preceding a list of elements, modify the entire list of elements and do not modify the individual elements of the list.
The present disclosure will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which various embodiments of the present disclosure are shown. The present disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the various embodiments set forth herein, rather, these various embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the present disclosure. Furthermore, a detailed description of other parts will not be provided not to make the present disclosure unclear. Like reference numerals in the drawings refer to like elements throughout.
The subject invention lies in providing an augmented reality based operation management system for each equipment of a power station, thereby providing a real-time feed of the operation performed and also ensuring enhanced safety of the personnel and equipment.
According to one implementation of the present invention, a method to facilitate real-time operation of at least one equipment of a power station, to a user in augmented reality is disclosed. The method comprises receiving an image frame captured by a digital imaging unit of a user equipment of the user system, detecting, from the image frame, an optical machine readable information code specific for each equipment and providing real-time equipment status, to the user equipment, based on the specific optical machine readable information code, wherein the user equipment is integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to receive the real-time status of each equipment of the power station.
According to one implementation of the present invention an augmented reality user system to facilitate real-time operation of at least one equipment of a power station is disclosed. The system is configured to receiving an image frame captured by a digital imaging unit of a user equipment of the user system, detecting, from the image frame, an optical machine readable information code specific for each equipment and providing real-time equipment status, to the user equipment, based on the specific optical machine readable information code, wherein the user equipment is integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to receive the real-time status of each equipment of the power station.
Augmented Reality (AR) is the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time. Augmented Reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it. The AR based mobile application takes into account real time SCADA status of Circuit breaker, isolators and earth switches for which the operation is being performed. All equipment’s in EHV Stations are assigned a QR code which is to be scanned before or after performing operation as per defined procedure. Augmenting the manual process of operation with this mobile app will eliminate any errors as the application does not allow the operator to proceed in case of any mistake or mismatch. Reference has been made to figure 2 illustrating the work flow of the steps of the AR based user system to provide real-time operation management of the equipment of a power station. The system provides assistance to the power station operators in obtaining a real-time equipment status and carrying out maintenance procedures on any equipment of the power station.
In one implementation of the present invention, an AR based user system is developed which is communicably coupled to a central library, storing the different operations that can be performed on each equipment of the power station, along with the detailed method steps. The personnel can access the entire operation steps at once before starting the operation. When the personnel initiate the operation procedure, the operation steps are displayed in the user equipment in a sequential manner, and also narrate the personnel instructions about the steps to be performed next for a certain job, only after receiving real-time confirmation from SCADA that the present operational step has been performed. The digital imaging unit of the user equipment detects and scans the optical machine readable information code like a QR code or a barcode specific to each equipment of a power station. Subsequently, operation details for the specific equipment is displayed on the user equipment as a video guide.
In another implementation of the present invention is to provide an AR based user system which is integrated with SCADA to fetch the real-time status of any equipment of the power station. After any operational step being performed by personnel, the real-time status of the equipment gets updated within a time span of 12 to 15 seconds.
Reference has been made to figure 5, wherein the figures 5 (a) and 5 (b) illustrate the display of the user equipment showing correct switch that needs to be operated and a switch which doesn’t need to respectively.
Reference has been made to figure 6 illustrating equipment Identification codes, wherein different codes are used to indicate the voltage level, the power station location and the equipment number.
A central library of operation procedures is created containing precise operational procedures of the specific equipment of the power station, for taking them out of service. Data regarding the specific operational procedures is entered into the central database after validation, that is accessed by the personnel during performing the operation. Multiple station operational procedures are stored in the central database.
The key attribute of a SCADA system is its ability to perform a supervisory operation over a variety of other proprietary equipment and provides an intuitive real-time visualization. Field inputs (Status/Measurement/Operation) are connected to SCADA Controller for continuous monitoring and operation purpose, thereby obtaining the real-time status of each equipment directly from SCADA, instead of optical machine readable information code, thus giving a foolproof and reliable solution. An equipment ID defined in the AR based user system for each equipment is linked with SCADA equipment ID.
The log in credential of AR operation management system is given to a user, to facilitate viewing and monitoring the current stage of operation easily just by logging in the user application from remote location.
In one implementation using AR operation management system desktop based user application, operation procedures (SOP) are validated from concern competent authorities and are stored on server as a Central library that is integrated with AR operation management system mobile based user application. A user can choose and perform the pre-approved operation procedure related to a specific job from library.
AR operation management system mobile based user application is integrated with the SCADA of the power system to confirm the pre and post status of equipment while performing the operation. Mobile based user application allows user for doing further operation if real time equipment status is matched with approved operation procedures.
Some of the non-limiting advantages of the present invention are:
1. Scope of wrong operation to be performed on any equipment is eliminated.
2. Continual audio support is provided to the personnel during performing an operation.
3. Remote operation and monitoring facility.
4. Provide live feed of EHV outage to personnel, operation and management steps are stored in a central library and are integrated to the SCADA of the power substation.

Although an augmented reality based user system to facilitate real-time operation of equipment of a power station has been described in language specific to structural features, it is to be understood that the embodiments disclosed in the above section are not necessarily limited to the specific methods or devices described herein. Rather, the specific features are disclosed as examples of implementations of an augmented reality based user system to facilitate real-time operation of equipment of a power station.