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GSM based automatic energy meter reading system with instant billing
Conference Paper · March 2013
DOI: 10.1109/iMac4s.2013.6526385

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 65

GSM BasedAutomatic Energy Meter Reading

System with Instant Billing

Ashna.k Sudhish N George

PG Scholar, Electronics & Communication Dept. Assistant Professor, Electronics & Communication Dept.
National Institute of Technology, National Institute of Technology,
Calicut, India,673601 E- Calicut, India,673601
mail:ashnabal@gmail.com. E-mail: sudhish @nitc.ac.in

Abstract— The technology as a result of the analogue and mechanical nature of the
of e-metering (Electronic
components in these meters. Collection of meter readings is also
Metering) has gone through rapid technological advancements and
inefficient, because a meter reader has to physically be on- site
there is increased demand for a reliable and efficient Automatic
to take the readings. This method of collecting of meter
Meter Reading (AMR) system. This paper presents the design of a
simple low cost wireless GSM energy meter and its associated web
readings becomes more problematic and costly when readings
interface, for automating billing and managing the collected data
have to be collected from vast, and often scattered rural areas.
globally. The proposed system replaces traditional meter reading
Meter readers are reluctant to make the effort to travel to such
methods and enables remote access of existing energy meter by the
areas and will often submit inaccurate estimations of the
energy provider. Also they can monitor the meter readings amount of electricity consumed. For households at the top of
regularly without the person visiting each house. A GSM basedhigh buildings and luxury housing plots, traditional meter
wireless communication module is integrated with electronic
reading is highly inefficient. There exists chance for missing
energy meter of each entity to have remote access over the usage of
electricity. A PC with a GSM receiver at the other end, whichbills, absence of consumer etc. Even though these conventional
meters were replaced with more efficient electronic energy
contains the database acts as the billing point. Live meter reading
meters these problems still persists. So a system which will
from the GSM enabled energy meter is sent back to this billing
point periodically and these details are updated in a centralprovide the bill in users mobile will be more suitable in the
current scenario. Here a new method of post paid electronic
database. A new interactive, user friendly graphical user interface
is developed using Microsoft visual studio .NET framework andenergy metering is introduced in this paper which will
C#. With proper automatically sense the used energy, records these reading
continuously, then sends it to the billing point through the
authentication, users can access the developed web page details
existing GSM network. Finally after processing the collected
from anywhere in the world. The complete monthly usage and due
data bill is generated using a web based system software and is
bill is messaged back to the customer after processing these data.
send back to the customer as SMS (Short Messaging
Keywords—Automatic Meter Reading System (AMRS); GSM; PIC; System).As it is web oriented once the data is updated, the
Short Messaging System (SMS); Visual Studio .NET; C#. registered users and authority can monitor and analyse the
generated bill of any month by sitting anywhere in the world.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical power has become indispensable to human II. LITERATURE SURVEY AND RELATED WORKS
survival and progress. Apart from efforts to meet growing For this work existing meter reading techniques in India are
demand, automation in the energy distribution is also necessary analyzed and conducted an extensive study on different energy
to enhance people’s life standard. Traditional meter reading by measuring instruments available now. In existing system either
human operator is inefficient to meet the future residential an electronic energy meter or an electro-mechanical meter is
development needs. So there is increased demand for fixed in the premise for measuring the usage. The meters
Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) systems which collects currently in use are only capable of recording kWh units. The
meter readings electronically, and its application is expanding kWh units used then still have to be recorded by meter readers
over industrial, commercial and utility environment. monthly, on foot. The recorded data need to be processed by a
meter reading company. For processing the meter reading,
Electronic utility meters are an important step towards company needs to firstly link each recorded power usage
automating the utility metering process. Automated utility datum to an account holder and then determine the amount
owed by means of the specific tariff in use.
meters have many new features that help to reduce the cost of
utilities to customers and the cost of delivering utilities to the Many systems built on various platforms have been
utility provider. The onset of rural electrification provides proposed by different research groups all over the world for
opportunities for new and more efficient metering technologies Automatic Meter Reading. There are two types of AMR
to be implemented. Traditional electro-mechanical meters, still systems, wire-based and wireless. Power Line Carrier (PLC)
widely used today, are prone to drift over temperature and time and Telephone Line Network (optical/ cable) are wire-based
This project was supported and financed by National Institute of Technology,
Calicut, INDIA, 673601.
978-1-4673-5090-7/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
66
AMR system and several related works are available. Many e-
metering systems have now been proposed, based on GPRS,
Bluetooth, GSM as explained in [1], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] and
[8].Design of an Electric Energy Meter for long-distance data
information transfers which based upon GPRS is proposed in
[1]. These systems can’t be implemented so easily because the
regular use of GPRS is still a dream to the common people .A
GSM Energy meter with instant billing facility is introduced in
[2] and [3],but still the problem of missing SMS will degrade
the accuracy and performance. A more reliable and
userfriendly system with web portal for multiple access using
the advanced Visual studio .net frame work is created in
this project which will manage the data efficiently even if
there is loss of SMS. It makes the design different from the
previous proposals. The GSM/GPRS channel is a very useful
means of communication as sending data as SMS turns out to
be a very handy tool, due to its good area coverage capability
and cost effectiveness. Different state electricity boards in
INDIA started using GSM facility for fault management and
so there is increased demand for this method.
For this design, energy meter specifications and tariff
structure followed by the Kerala State Electricity Board
(KSEB) are adopted. In this project the front end is User
friendly and any employee with minimum knowledge of
computers can work on this software. Employees can read the
meter by sitting in their office.
A. A lookback at GSM Technology and GSM meter in India.
Several transmission protocols in wired/wireless manner
were introduced so far to read digital meters remotely at
different areas of India. The Digital watt-hour meters are
microprocessor based meters which replaced traditional
electromechanical meters.
. meter
Fig.1 Traditional Electromechanical meter Vs Electronic
Tele watt meters were implemented to transmit data on
monthly basis to a remote central office through a dedicated
telephone line and a pair of modems. A microprocessor/DSP-
based meter is used in this to measure the electricity
consumption of multiple users in a residential area. A master
PC at the control centre was used to send commands to a
remote meter, which in turn transmitted data back, using the
Power Line Communication (PLC) technique. These
techniques were mainly implemented in areas that had a fixed
telephone network. Bluetooth energy meters were designed
and implemented in some areas where several meters in close
proximity, communicated wirelessly with a Master PC. These
are primarily designed for low power consumption. As they
were operating within a short range (power class- dependent: 1
meter, 10 meters, 100 meters) this technique was not effective
and implemented only in areas with high population density.
So a new approach of using an energy measurement
technique that encompasses the GSM network as a mean of
transmitting energy data is more relevant. The GSM/GPRS
network offers most coverage in most developed and
developing countries. This method is also effective in rural
areas, which are not densely populated, and in which, most
people do not have access to a fixed telephone network. So in a
country like India we need to focus more on this method as it
can be implemented very easily and effectively.
According to the latest report by researcher Gartner India's
mobile subscriber base should grow to 993 million by 2014 ,
which expects the world's fastest-growing mobile market to
close 2010 with more than 660 million subscribers. India is the
second-largest wireless market in the world after China with its
618 million mobile subscribers at end-May, according to data
from the country's telecoms regulator. Mobile connections
were at 525 million at end of 2009.
Fig. 2 India-GSM mobile subscribers.
Latest data by the Cellular Operators Association of India
(COAI) showed GSM operators had added 6.68 million in
November 2012 and the GSM subscriber base was at 632.08
million. GSM operators added 7.55 million new subscribers in
December, taking the total GSM user base to 639.64 million in
the country, according to the COAI’s data released.
 In this scenario the utilization of existing GSM network for
metering in India will be a cost effective method for all class of
people.
III. GSM METER - ARCHITECTURE
When developing a technology that might replace one which
has been in use for more than thirty years, not only the key
issue needs to be addressed, but added functionality and
solutions to other obstacles presented by the previous
technology need to be addressed. Even existing meter readers
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and other employers have to accept the quality and
effectiveness of the proposed system.
The engineering challenge is to develop a product that can
serve as wireless system replacement for the metering and
billing system currently in use. This emphasis that the meter
under development has to work under the old circumstances and
perform all the previous functions, but also be able to relay the
information in a new way and perform additional functions,
functional block details are shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 Overview of Proposed System.
The proposed system for energy billing is automatic, do not
require human effort to read the meter, consumer can directly
know the amount he has to pay at the time of bill preparation
itself and can even pay the amount online.
without the need of replacing all meters on the electrical grid
simultaneously.
The developed AMR system consists of three main parts: a
digital GSM power meter installed in every individual
consumer unit, transmission facility (SMS gateway), and
billing server at the energy provider side. Overview and
IV. DETAILED DESIGN
This GSM energy meter is constructed using the microchip
single phase dedicated energy metering IC MCP3905A, a
display, 8-bit PIC Microcontroller PIC16F877A and GSM
modem. A 10A class I single phase meter is designed with
embedded GSM modem which utilizes the existing GSM
network to send its power usage value as SMS to the energy
provider wirelessly. While sending the message each time, the
same data is also stored in the associated non-volatile memory
(EEPROM). RTC module is also integrated in the meter to have
time stamped recording of usage details. The detailed design
blocks are shown in Fig. 4 and Configuration of
different PIC ports for performing this functionality is
demonstrated in Fig.6
Fig.4 Detailed Design Blocks
Fig. 5 Detailed Circuit of energy meter

Fig. 6 Configuration of PIC Ports
In the office, the GSM unit will receive these data and
software will calculate the total consumption of each user. The
design can be discussed as two broad categories, Hardware
detailed design and software web portal design.
V. HARDWARE DETAILED DESIGN
In this system the two wire power supply is connected to
the energy metering IC through the analog front end of the
MCP3905 energy meter evaluation board which provides
average active power information via a pulse output which
may be then used to be processed by a Micro Controller Unit
(MCU). The GSM unit is interfaced to the micro controller via
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continuously evenin power failure.
a very small coin cell (3V CMOS battery) which runs
a MAX 232 convertor as in Fig.7 (b). User GSM modem
transmits usage details to office modem. Every house/premise
has a unique number (consumer number), which is given by
the corresponding authority.
The detailed circuit of the meter constructed using off the
shelf components such as evaluation board ( MCP3905A),
Microcontroller (PIC16F877) and LCD (20x4) and GSM
Modem (Fargo Maestro -20) is shown in Fig.5.
At the input prototype area of the evaluation board a 250
μŸ, 10A meter shunt is connected as current-sensing element.
A. Power Supply
 69

The microcontroller and other devices get power supply

from AC to DC adapter or from direct ac lines through voltage
regulator. The adapter output voltage will be 12V DC non-
regulated. The 7805 voltage regulators are used to convert 12
V to 5V DC. Circuit details are shown in Fig.7 (a).The low
cost DC power supply circuit included in the MCP3905
evaluation board which is created from a half wave zener
diode-limited AC signal feeding a 7805 +5V regulator can
also be used.

B. External EEPROM memory

Selected EEPROM is Atmel 24C256.This memory device
is used to store the data for off line process. i.e. it stores the
amount of unit the user consumed while transferring each
SMS.

C. Real Time Clock (RTC)

This is used to maintain the real time and date in off line
processing. RTC counts seconds, minutes, hours, date of the
month, month, day of the week, and year with leap-year
compensation valid up to 2100.The RTC selected here is
DS1307 .It is low cost, easy to solder, and can run for years on
Fig.7 (a) Power supply (b) MAX 232 interfacing.

D. Implementation Details
Output pulses from the metering IC are counted using the
default timer of PIC MCU. The signal from meter through
Octocoupler is normally high (5V) and the high to low
transition of this voltage wave indicates the occurrence of a
pulse. The counting of low pulse is an inefficient method as
improper grounding issues may even be counted as a pulse by
the device. So the produced pulse is reversed before applying to
the counter. A TTL compatible inverter circuit is used for this
purpose.

The microcontroller is programmed to read data from the

metering IC every second. When microcontroller reads the
power consumption, it is stored and current reading is
incremented in its software. In this design meter is calibrated
such that for 1 unit of energy (kWh) consumption, it generates
3200 pulses in LED. (It can be calibrated for a meter constant of
1000 imp/kWh or 100 imp/kWh or 32000 imp/kWh etc as per
the requirement).
Energy per count, Epc = (I max X V rms)/3200. (1)
Where Imax is the maximum load current and Vrmsis the RMS
voltage.

Energy per LED pulse, Epp =1000 X 3600/ Mpr. (2)

where Mpr is the pulse rate of the meter in impulse/
kWh.

Practical set up created for transmitter prototype developed

using the meter circuit of Fig .5 is shown below in Fig.8.A
variable load set up is connected and usage is measured.
 70

Fig.10GSM Meter after casing and

sample results on display.

B. Billing Software
A web orientedGUI designedespecially for e-billing,
managesall receivedSMS readings,updatesthe database
regularly,computesthe monthlybill amount,and notify the
consumer his bill detailsough
thr SMS. It also publishes the bill
in the designed web portal and consumer can log for getting the
usage details any time. Printed postalmails can also be
providedfor respectiveconsumer.Authoritycan log for bill
preparationand analysis of any collecteddata. Information
Fig.8. Transmitter prototype. portal helps to
assist the smart meter
to log consu
mption data to
the database.MicrosoftVisual Studio 2008 IDE is used to
PCB layout for the meter routed with the aid of Cadence
developthe web portal. Data base used is MicrosoftSQL
Orcad 9.2 suite and corresponding printed board are shown in Server2005 (Fig. 11).
Fig.9.Mechanical design and assembly of the developed meter
is shown in Fig.10.The device has a plastic enclosure. It has
less weight and easy to handle. For status indication, agreen
LED is placed in front side. 20x4 LCD display is there on the
top of the meter to display the reading and RTC time date
information. Push button switches are provided to read
EEPROM content.

.
Fig.11 Database details

MicrosoftVisual Studio .NET 2008 provide an integrated

Fig.9. Orcad layout and printed PCB.
development environment(IDE) for maximizing developer
can be modified and updated any time, even in the field. The
VI. SOFTWARE DETAILED DESIGN firmware is written in embedded C.

A. Microcontroller software design

All software used for the PIC16F877 in the control
circuitry was developed in Mikroelektronika’s MikroC PRO
4.15 IDE. The meter PIC MCU is programmed via the In-
System Programming (ISP) interface. PICkit 2 v 2.61 is used
for programming the target PIC. GSM modem is controlled by
using AT command for all kinds of operations.The algorithm
for meter were developed by considering all the required
outputs. The brain of the meter is this developed firmware. It
 71

productivity with the .NET framework. It is used to develop

console and graphical user interface applications along with
Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and
web services in both native code together with managed code
for all platforms supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows
Mobile, Windows CE, .NET framework, .NET Compact
framework and Microsoft Silverlight. In this application source
code is written in C#. The .NET version of C# is an
improved version with more features and additions. The
developed site can be checked by running locally on any PC
using ASP.net development server local host. Designed home
Once it is connected it will remain as connected for the
whole system and continues receiving SMS till the
administrator disconnects it using the disconnect option.
Different staff members under the administrator are registered
using the member registration option provided to the
administrator. These operations are demonstrated in Fig. 13.
The registered staffs are assigned to a particular section and
they are registering the consumers under them. Registered
staff member can login and add any number of consumers
under his section. Also he is responsible for preparing the bills

the server for practical use, once hosted the user can access it VII. RESULTS
from anywhere through internet. Designed meter is able to send the usage value at a
predefined time and the status is displayed
in LCD for the next
5 minutes after sending, as
shown above in Fig. 10.

Fig.12 Home page Fig.14 Generated Bill.

Users are categorized as administrator,staff and consumer. Example of the prepared billby a staff memberis shown in
Any user can log using the user login option available in the Fig.14.Consumer can login to view this bill. By selecting a
web site as shown below inFig.13. Administrator can perform particular month he can view his usage history any time.
category registration, section addition, tariff updates, staff
registrationand message setting. After the initial login the
administrator can connect the GSM modem to the web portal
through serial port / USB. Initially required hardware
configurationshave to done for the modem setup. Then by
selecting the corresponding rt
poadministrator can connectit to
the system for accepting SMS from meter.

Fig.15 Consumer registration

example andSMS reception in that
page of the web portal is shown in Fig.12. It can be hosted to of consumers under him. By simple selection of consumer
Fig.13 User login, Category registration, Port setting, Tariff table updating.

name and month, automatic bill generation occurs by auto
processing of the background data.
consumer’s phone.
The consolidated bill prepared sent to the users mobile, for a
particular month of usage, for a particular consumer is depicted
in Fig.15. Prepared Bill is successfully sent back to the
registered consumer at the time of bill generation itself.
Backend database details and HTML source code details can be
accessed anytime by the administrator.
ensures that power consumption values can be transmitted
more frequently to a remote station. The implications of being
able to transmit readings more often are that energy utilities will
be able to generate timely bills, better understand energy
demand patterns, manage meter failures more efficiently and
manage fraud better.
The developed system is highly effective in the sense it is
able to eliminate the drawback of serial communication. i.e
even though it lacks acknowledgement of the sent SMS it is
not affecting system performance. If a message is missing then
also as the system is accepting the cumulative value next time
which includes the lost content. And while preparing bill the
ystem is accepting the maximum consumption value. These
mplementations make the designed system unique and
effective compared to the previous proposals.
The system also poses much less of a safety risk since
human interaction has been minimized. The generated bill is
available as SMS at the time of generation itself and hard copies
are available to the consumer as postal mail. A soft copy can be
end to the consumers e-mail if consumer is registered with his
e-mail address .The same idea can be expanded to water and
gas meter reading system by proper modification. The designed
web portal options can be added to the existing web page of any
energy provider worldwide and it can be hosted for public.
The system can be modified by using latest SPI
metering ICs which will provide more parameters. By using the
Microchip three phase IC MCP3909 the same idea can be
extended to three phase systems also. Power factor
mprovement options can be added in future. By adding an
nitialization message option at the time of installation the
meter time can be updated from the server. If energy provider
72
VIII. CONCLUSION
Various electronic meters have been developed and are still
being developed. However the use of GSM in this particular
system provides numerous advantages over methods that have
been previously used. Data transmission is charged at standard
SMS rates, thus the charges are not based on the duration of
data transmission. The cost efficient transmission of readings
is willing to add online payment options in the hosted web page,
instant payment by the consumer from anywhere in the world is
also possible.
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