DESC:FORM 2
THE PATENTS ACT, 1970
[39 of 1970]
&
THE PATENTS RULES, 2003
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
(Section 10; Rule 13)

METHOD OF COLLECTING INFORMATION OF UTILITY POLES AND POWER SUB-STATIONS IN A PARTICULAR AREA USING A MOBILE DEVICE

Andhra Pradesh State FiberNet Limited,
122, Madhapur Rd, Kavuri Hills Phase 1,
Kavuri Hills, Jubilee Hills,
Telangana 500033,
An Indian Company

The following Specification particularly describes the invention and the method it is being performed

RELATED APPLICATION

The present invention claims benefit of the Indian Provisional Application No. 201641021631 titled “METHOD OF COLLECTING INFORMATION OF UTILITY POLES AND POWER SUB-STATIONS IN A PARTICULAR AREA USING A MOBILE DEVICE” filed on 23rd June 2016 by Andhra Pradesh State FiberNet Limited, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to fiber optic cable communications, and more particularly relates to a method of collecting information of utility poles and power sub-stations in a particular area using a mobile device

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Currently, the transfer of power to household environments, office premises etc, are performed via Ethernet cables. However, the Ethernet cables lacks adaptability to upgrade to new network systems. For example, if a government body wishes to change the entire existing 33/11KV power cable network in a particular state by means of optic fiber wires, information such as physical location of utility poles, number of utility poles and substations situated in that district are required to be collected. Let us assume that a particular state has 3000 substations and 4lakhs utility poles. In order to provide optical fiber communication, all necessary details such as type of utility pole, its location in terms of longitude and latitude values are required to be collected and stored in a database for further analysis.

To map the geolocations of the 3000 substations and 4lakhs utility poles nearly 100 teams are expected to work for a minimum of 5months to extract the required information. Further, quantity of the new cabling system required to deploy and determining shortest route to connect the utility poles and substations remains a tedious process. Also, a huge money would be required for performing different tasks.

Currently, there exists no system, which avoids huge manpower and money to map geolocations of utility poles and substations. In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a system to calculate power line length in an efficient manner.

The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed herein and which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Various embodiments herein describe a mobile device for collecting information of utility poles and power sub-stations in a particular area using a device application. According to one embodiment, the mobile device comprises of a processor, a memory in communication with the processor, and a device application for collecting information of utility poles and power substations in an area; wherein the device application comprises of a drop-down menu for selecting one or more information fields associated with the utility poles and the power substations, an built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) module for capturing accurate location of the utility poles and the power substations, a data transmission module for transmitting the captured data into a server for processing.

According to one embodiment, the mobile device further comprises of a data converter module for converting the collected data into a GIS platform, and storing the data in a Geodatabase.

According to one embodiment, the one or more information fields associated with the drop-down menu comprises of a substation name, a feeder name, and a pole type.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

The other objects, features and advantages will occur to those skilled in the art from the following description of the preferred embodiment and the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a pictorial representation illustrating levels of human resources involved in calculating power cable length in a particular area, according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 2 illustrates an exemplary mobile application installed in a user device for providing information about utility poles and sub-stations, according to one embodiment.

Figure 3 is a graphical diagram illustrating an exemplary data collection of utility poles and sub-stations in a particular area for a predefined period, according to one embodiment.

Figure 4A and 4B illustrates graphical form of exemplary reports including information about utility poles and sub-stations in a particular region, according to one embodiment.

Although 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.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention describes a method of collecting information of utility poles and power sub-stations in a particular area using a mobile device. In the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.

The specification may refer to “an”, “one” or “some” embodiment(s) in several locations. This does not necessarily imply that each such reference is to the same embodiment(s), or that the feature only applies to a single embodiment. Single features of different embodiments may also be combined to provide other embodiments.

As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless expressly stated otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “includes”, “comprises”, “including” and/or “comprising” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations and arrangements of one or more of the associated listed items.

Unless otherwise defined, 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 this disclosure pertains. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

The present invention uses a mobile application for collecting information of utility poles and power sub-stations in a particular area. The mobile application is installed in a mobile device of different levels of users to collect the information relating to utility poles and power sub-stations present in a state. The different levels of users include, but not limited to, technical assistants (TAs), electrical consultants (ECs), assistant programming officers (APOs) and assistant engineer (AE) & ADE officers from Electricity Department. In one exemplary operation, consider that the state comprises of plurality of districts, zonal and mandals. In order to collect information relating to utility poles and power sub-stations in these areas, TAs present in those areas are provided with a mobile phone inbuilt with a device application. Further, the mobile phone has a built-in GPS (not AGPS) working under Panchayti Raj department. Each section (equivalent to a mandal) will have one AE to supervise the TAs. It is to be noted that each AE belongs to Discom and there are two Discoms SPDCL and EPDCL respectively.

In one exemplary operation, all phone numbers of TAs and AEs & field staff of discoms were collected. Some of the state-level responsible officers from both offices were called and explained plan of action and were made into a team. Using a teleconference, 3,000 people were simultaneously briefed and trained on using the mobile application. Further, a call centre is established for the 3,000 people to address their issues and provide assistance and necessary support.

Figure 1 is a block diagram illustrating one or more functional components of a mobile device having a device application for collecting information relating to utility poles and power sub-stations, according to one embodiment. As shown in Figure 1, the mobile device 100 comprises of a processor 102, a memory 104, a device application 106, a GPS module 110, a data converter module 106 and a data transmission module 112.

In one embodiment, the device application 106 present in the mobile device enables a user to collect information regarding utility poles and power sub-stations. The device application 106 is provided with a drop-down menu for allowing the user to select section, sub-station type and 33KV feeder. The device application 106 also allows the user to capture an image of the pole or sub-station and saves the captured image in the memory 104 of the mobile device 100. In some embodiments, the captured images can be transmitted to a server via a data transmission module 112.

The GPS module 110 is adapted for providing location details of the utility poles, sub-stations etc. Once the GPS module 110 is turned ON in the mobile device, latitude and longitude information associated with utility pole, power sub-station is recorded and can be shared to a server via the data transmission module.

The data converter module is adapted for converting the captured data into GIS platform compliant, so that the stored data can be used for creating geo database.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary mobile device having a device application for collecting information relating to utility poles and power sub-stations. The device application comprises of one or more drop-down menus for selecting information of utility poles and power sub-stations. Thus, the device application eliminates any typing and thereby avoids human error. A user can select drop-down menus for selecting all standard fields like substation name, feeder name, type of pole etc. The device application also uses a built-in GPS to capture the accurate location. The user is not allowed to proceed further unless the desired accuracy is obtained.

The collected information can be stored either in a device memory or can be transmitted to a central server via data connection enabled in the mobile device. In case, if data connectivity is not available, the data will be stored in the mobile and whenever it gets connected to Internet, the data will be transmitted to the server and synchronized. For a state like Andhra Pradesh, the data was collected within three days of time and nearly 1463 field staff members along with technical assistants and assistant engineers were involved in completing the while exercise. The collected data was purely in text format. The complete data in text format is then converted into GIS platform and stored in a geodatabase. It is to be noted that 80% of the Data are collected within 3 Days of time, wherein during the first 3 days the field staff worked on the survey and the electrical department staff continued for un attended power lines. An exemplary data collection of utility poles and sub-stations in a particular area for a predefined period is shown in Figure 3. Figure 4A and 4B illustrates graphical form of exemplary reports including information about utility poles and sub-stations in a particular region, according to one embodiment.

Depiction of different features as modules/units is intended to highlight different functional aspects of the devices illustrated and does not necessarily imply that such modules/units must be realized by separate hardware or software components. Rather, functionality associated with one or more modules/units may be integrated within common or separate hardware or software components. Various embodiments have been described. These and other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims.

,CLAIMS:CLAIMS
We Claim:
1. A mobile device, comprising:
a processor;
a memory in communication with the processor; and
a device application for collecting information of utility poles and power substations in an area; wherein the device application comprises:
a drop-down menu for selecting one or more information fields associated with the utility poles and the power substations;
an built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) module for capturing accurate location of the utility poles and the power substations.
a data transmission module for transmitting the captured data into a server for processing.

2. The mobile device of claim 1, further comprises of:
a data converter module for converting the collected data into a GIS platform; and
storing the data in a Geodatabase.

3. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the one or more information fields associated with the drop-down menu comprises of:
a substation name;
a feeder name; and
a pole type.

Dated this the 23rd day of June 2017

Signature

KEERTHI J S
Patent agent
Agent for the applicant