초록 ▼

An electronic electric meter for use in a networked automatic meter reading environment. The meter includes a meter microcontroller, a measurement microcontroller, a communication microcontroller and spread spectrum processor, and a plurality of other communication interface modules for communicatin

An electronic electric meter for use in a networked automatic meter reading environment. The meter includes a meter microcontroller, a measurement microcontroller, a communication microcontroller and spread spectrum processor, and a plurality of other communication interface modules for communicating commodity utilization and power quality data to a utility. The meter measures electricity usage and monitors power quality parameters for transmission to the utility over a spread spectrum local area network (LAN) to a remotely located gateway node. The gateway node transmits this data to the utility over a commercially available fixed wide area network (WAN). The meter also provides direct communication to the utility over a commercially available network interface that plugs into the meter's backplane or bus system, bypassing the local area network communication link and gateway node.

대표청구항 ▼

What is claimed is: 1. A commodity monitoring network comprising:an RF communication unit that interfaces with a device that measures a utilization characteristic of a commodity provided by a commodity provider, and that is operable to wirelessly transmit utilization data generated by said device; a

What is claimed is: 1. A commodity monitoring network comprising:an RF communication unit that interfaces with a device that measures a utilization characteristic of a commodity provided by a commodity provider, and that is operable to wirelessly transmit utilization data generated by said device; anda gateway node including:a transceiver section that wirelessly receives data including the utilization data and a channel selection transmitted from the RF communication unit,a network interface module that couples the gateway node to a communications network, anda programmable controller coupled to the transceiver section, to process the channel selection received by the transceiver section, and to set the transceiver section at a transceiver frequency corresponding to the channel selection.