Simple microcontroller based mains power analyzer device

Abstract

Paper deals with design of simple microcontroller based power analyzer device for measurement of basic electrical quantities in mains network. Main part of the device is 8-bit general purpose microcontroller MC9S08GB60 by Freescale Semiconductor. It performs all tasks related to data acquisition, computation of desired values and communication with personal computer. Algorithms implemented in the device firmware allows measurements of true RMS values of voltage and current, real power and power factor independently on the shape of measured voltage and current waveforms. In advanced mode of operation it is also possible to send sampled waveforms to the personal computer for next analyses. Developed evaluation software is able to visualize all measured quantities in user friendly graphical user interface in form of graphs including long-term archiving function for further data analysis. Communication with supervision system is provided by standard RS232 communication interface.