Remote Meter Reading

In modern society, some new concepts regarding residential community management, such as intelligence service focused on human being and management in a scientific way, have become a big challenge to their corresponding traditional methods. With the development of science and technology, and the improvement of people's life environment, in order to resolve the problems caused by the traditional methods, which include high workload, human error and security issues, the implementation of remote meter reading systems for four meters (water meters, electricity meters, natural gas meters and heating meters) that make meter reading and payment recording automatic, has become an essential part of modern intelligent residential community management.In this paper, we introduce market requirements, and technical characteristics and specifications of remote meter reading systems in terms of design and implementation. Focusing on the resolutions to the defects with the current existing systems on the market, such as accuracy problems of meters (water hammer), functionality corruption issues caused by the latency of transport network, network infrastructure inflexibility issues, self diagnostic and error correction issues, and system security issues, the design logic and implementation methods are presented about some of the critical technical processes.Some of the advanced technologies applied in remote meter reading systems make it possible to break through some of the technical bottle-necks. These technologies include the following:1) TCP/IP technology– improve the network speed and reliability.2) CRC error correction technology– improve data integrity3) Security defense technology applied in signal input, communication and power systems– improve system security4) Self-sustained switch technology– fix a persistent defect in water meter remote reading– water hammer problem.Meanwhile, referring to BACnet protocol, which is commonly applied in building automatic control area, a concise and effective protocol is set up. In network infrastructure, a specific research is performed on RS485 network. And several feasible network architectures are presented to satisfy the needs in different scenarios.In this paper, the internal mechanism of water hammer problem is analyzed and 3 resolutions are presented. And pro and con about these resolutions are also argued.With the research about this project, some new thoughts and methods are applied. And the system scalability, accuracy and reliability are improved.