Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
Embodiments of the invention in general relates to the technical field of monitoring system of an overhead distribution network, more particularly, to an Internet of Things (IoT) based Intelligent Monitoring System for LT Overhead Distribution Network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability, in an electricity distribution utility.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Most of the countries, especially India has a vast and complex Low Tension LT distribution network comprising of primarily overhead O/H lines, LT poles and distribution pillar boxes with requisite protection system.
In a utility, where there is an overhead LT system and in case of an outage due to conductor fault or any abnormality, the information can only be retrieved when the consumers/local authorities inform the utility of the event. This causes long delays in restoring the power supply to affected areas and also ascertaining the fault inception point in the LT network. More importantly a hazardous situation of electrocution could arise, if for example, the body of an electric pole gets live in case of an overhead conductor snapping.
However, a specific need of continuous monitoring of the LT overhead network has cropped up due to various reasons pertaining to further improvement in maintaining these networks.
In view of the aforementioned problem and existing technical solutions, there is a dire need for system which will detect the event when any of the phase voltages become abnormal or the neutral wire or the earth connection or pole body, develops an unwanted voltage; and further identifies the particular pole from where the voltage goes missing to make it easier to capture the fault point.

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 some 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 system developed in order to notify the power utility in the event of an abnormality in the LT overhead network due to wire snapping, neutral / ground failure, short circuit, alive LT pole structure, etc., according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
Another object of the present invention is an IoT based intelligent monitoring method for a LT Overhead Distribution Network to provide a voltage based detection method of a broken wire in a LT system, remote monitoring of LT Overhead Lines using data analytics, automatic detection of abnormality in LT network, and analytics for assessing type of abnormality, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a IoT based Intelligent Monitoring System for LT Overhead Distribution Network, with automatic fault detection using algorithms & remote-viewing capability, in an electricity distribution utility. The IoT based intelligent monitoring system for LT overhead distribution network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability in an electricity distribution utility, said system comprising: a IoT gateway module communicably coupled to a remote server of a cloud network via a communication gateway, said gateway module comprising: a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a phase wire; a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a neutral wire; a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of an earth wire; a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a pole body; wherein the plurality of IoT based field devices are operably coupled to an IoT mainboard, wherein the IoT mainboard is communicably coupled to the remote server of the cloud network via the communication gateway, said IoT field devices are configured to transmit the monitored and sensed voltage data of the plurality of IoT field devices, to the remote server.
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 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 schematic of a complete system of IoT based LT over-head line monitoring system, according to an embodiment 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.
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 an IoT based Intelligent Monitoring System for LT overhead distribution network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability, in an electricity distribution utility.
According to an embodiment, solution based on continuous monitoring of phase, neutral, earth wire and pole body voltages is performed, where the IoT based field devices will continuously monitor these parameters and transmit the data to a remote server. The field devices, with an in-built voltage detection device shall monitor the continuous voltages and feed the data to a local secure cloud. In the event of a fault, the devices shall automatically detect the missing or developed unwanted voltage, and generate a notification and transfer the same via cloud to the remote HMI instantly. Additionally, this sensor data is automatically sent to a remote server at user defined time intervals, for e.g., every 15 minutes, for further analytics at the head-end system.
According to an embodiment, as illustrated in Fig. 1, the system identifies any abnormalities like wire snapping, neutral / ground failure, short circuit or a live pole etc. in a particular segment of the overhead LT distribution network.
According to an implementation, the system is a voltage-based detection system wherein, if the voltage goes beyond the pre-configurable/configurable threshold level, the relevant data is recorded with date, time stamp and an alarm flag and also provides periodic voltage data for additional analytics at server end.
The field devices comprise an advanced microcontroller based motherboard which consists of ADCs for sampling the analog voltages obtained from the field. These digitized values are then sent over an inbuilt 4G communication module using a Private Access Point Name, APN, at a pre-configurable time interval (e.g. 15 mins), to a remote server over the Message Queue Telemetry Transport, MQTTS, protocol as mentioned earlier, connected with a service-provider’s Multiprotocol Label Switching, MPLS, backhaul.
MPLS, is a networking technology that routes traffic using the shortest path based on “labels,” rather than network addresses, to handle forwarding over private wide area networks. In an MPLS network, labels are assigned to data packets. Packet-forwarding decisions are made solely on the contents of this label, without the need to examine the packet itself. This allows one to create end-to-end circuits across any type of transport medium, using any protocol.
This MPLS Link is between the 4G Network provider and the proposed MQTT Broker Server Infrastructure. This has been used for establishing private network from the IoT devices to the MQTT broker in FIG1.
MQTTS is a lightweight, publish-subscribe, machine to machine network protocol for Message queue/Message queuing service. It is designed for connections with remote locations that have devices with resource constraints or limited network bandwidth and hence most suited for IoT devices. MQTTS is the cyber secure varient of MQTT. The MQTT protocol defines two types of network entities: a message broker (co-ordinator of the publish-subscribe process) and a number of clients. An MQTT broker is a server that receives all messages from the clients and then routes the messages to the appropriate destination clients. This protocol has been used for lightweight communication from the IoT devices to the MQTT broker and also from the MQTT broker to a Head End System, HES, server as shown in FIG1.
APN is the name of a gateway between a GSM, GPRS, 3G and 4G mobile network and another computer network. A mobile device making a data connection must be configured with an APN to present to the carrier to identify the route to be followed. This is configured in the IoT devices communication module as shown in FIG1.
Whenever any out-of-limit event occurs, the entire dataset is published with time-stamp value, from the MQTTS Broker, hosted in the server, instantly with the highest priority. In addition to the threshold driven push event alerts, the devices will periodically publish channel values at pre-configured / configurable time interval. The back office HES will subscribe to the MQTTS broker and will receive push messages for threshold-violating events from all such devices operational in the field. The messages received will be then be made available through a server dashboard for immediate action. This arrangement of private APN and data reporting to hosted broker with the requisite firewalls takes care of the cyber security concerns with respect to sensitive and critical Operational Technology (OT) data.
HES is a common term of a system at back office comprising server(s) and network infrastructure. This is at the CESC system block and after the MQTT broker and dashboard / users as shown in FIG1.
According to an embodiment, a 4G/IoT-based embedded system to monitor the measurements of each phase (R, Y, and B) and Neutral along with Pole Body voltages with respect to ground.
According to an embodiment, the relevant data collected from the field devices for analytics were carried out at the local mainboard of the IoT field device.
In another embodiment, the relevant data collected from the field devices for analytics are carried out at a separate dashboard utilizing an algorithm, at a central location, to minimize the requirement of significant processing capabilities of the IoT field devices. In this case the IoT field devices act as only sensing devices transmitting data to the central server, and thereby making the design of the IoT field devices simpler and easy to trouble shoot in case of any problem.
According to an exemplary implementation, in an area where water logging occurs during the rainy season increasing chances of electrocution if there is a snapped LT live wire. As the earth fault current is very minimal due to the high resistive nature of such faults where the snapped wire may be hanging or loosely touching the ground the chances of operation of protective fuse at source end are almost nil. The IoT based Intelligent Monitoring system thus uses the voltage detection method which can automatically detect the absence of voltage at the load end if there is a snapped wire or even detect voltages in earth wire if the earth wire is snapped or connection of earth wire to ground is lost. Utilizing specifically designed algorithms exact nature of abnormality can be ascertained from the data. Ideally the sensing devices must be placed at each end-point of an LT overhead section to determine the exact location of fault. However, optimisation may be done by placing the sensing devices at strategic location such as branch off sections where it becomes a necessity.
As shown in Figure 1, IoT based intelligent monitoring system for LT overhead distribution network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability in an electricity distribution utility, said system comprising: a IoT gateway module communicably coupled to a remote server of a cloud network via a communication gateway, said gateway module comprising: a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a phase wire; a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a neutral wire; a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of an earth wire; a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a pole body; wherein the plurality of IoT based field devices are operably coupled to an IoT mainboard, wherein the IoT mainboard is communicably coupled to the remote server of the cloud network via the communication gateway, said IoT field devices are configured to transmit the monitored and sensed voltage data of the plurality of IoT field devices, to the remote server.
Some of the non-limiting advantages of the IoT based Intelligent Monitoring System for LT Overhead Distribution Network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability are:
1. Remotely monitor the LT overhead lines.
2. Detect any kind of abnormality in the LT overhead network.
3. To minimise chances of fatality due to electrocution due to snapped LT wire.
Although an IoT based Intelligent Monitoring System for LT Overhead Distribution Network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability 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 IoT based Intelligent Monitoring System for LT Overhead Distribution Network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability.
, Claims:
1. A IoT based intelligent monitoring system for LT overhead distribution network, with automatic fault detection and remote-viewing capability in an electricity distribution utility, said system comprising:
a IoT gateway module communicably coupled to a remote server of a cloud network via a communication gateway, said gateway module comprising:
a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a phase wire;
a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a neutral wire;
a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of an earth wire;
a plurality of IoT based field devices, each device having an inbuilt voltage detection sensor, said devices are configured to continuously monitor the voltage of a pole body;
wherein the plurality of IoT based field devices are operably coupled to an IoT mainboard,
wherein the IoT mainboard is communicably coupled to the remote server of the cloud network via the communication gateway, said IoT field devices are configured to transmit the monitored and sensed voltage data of the plurality of IoT field devices, to the remote server.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein in the event of a fault, the plurality of IoT field devices automatically detect a missing or developed unwanted voltage, and is configured to generate a notification and transmit the same via the cloud network to a remote Human Machine Interface, HMI, instantly.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein sensed voltage data is data is automatically sent to the remote server at predetermined scheduled time intervals for further analytics.

4. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the system is a voltage-based detection system wherein, if the sensed voltage from the plurality of IoT filed devices goes beyond a pre-configurable/configurable threshold level, the system is configured to record the sensed voltage along with a date, time stamp and alarm flag.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of IoT field devices consist of an advanced microcontroller based motherboard which consists of a plurality of ADCs for sampling the analog voltages obtained from the field.

6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the digitized values of the sensed voltage data are sent over an inbuilt 4G communication module using a Private Access Point Name, APN, at a pre-configurable time interval, to the remote server over a Message Queue Telemetry Transport, MQTTS, protocol, connected with a service-provider’s Multiprotocol Label Switching, MPLS, backhaul.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein whenever any out-of-limit event occurs, the entire sensed voltage dataset is published with time-stamp value, from the MQTTS Broker, hosted in the server, instantly with the highest priority, and in addition to the threshold driven push event alerts, the IoT field devices periodically publish channel values at pre-configured / configurable time interval,
wherein a back office Head End System, HES, subscribes to the MQTTS broker and receives push messages for threshold-violating events from all such IoT devices operational in the field,
wherein the messages received are made available through a server dashboard for immediate action, and the arrangement of private APN and data reporting to CESC hosted broker with the requisite firewalls takes care of the cyber security concerns with respect to sensitive & critical Operational Technology (OT) data.

8. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the IoT mainboard is configured to store the sensed voltage data from the plurality of IoT field devices, and configured to further analyze the data.

9. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of IoT field devices only act as sensing devices and transmit the sensed voltage data to the remote server, wherein the remote server is configured to further analyze the data.

10. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the system is a 4G/IoT-based embedded system configured to monitor the measurements of each phase (R, Y, and B) & Neutral along with Pole Body voltages with respect to ground.