A PROJECT PHASE-I REPORT

ON

OPTICAL PORT DATA COMMUNICATION USING DLMS COSEM

SUBMITTED TO THE SAVITRIBAI PHULE PUNE UNIVERSITY, PUNE

IN THE PARTIAL FULFILLMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE

OF

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
IN
ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATION

BY

Nikhil Ekvachane Exam. No. 71820671B

Soham Tembe Exam. No. 71821587H
Sumeet Upasani Exam. No. 71821614J

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

PROF. P. G. CHILVERI

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGG.

STES’S
SMT. KASHIBAI NAVALE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
VADGAON BK., OFF.SINHGAD ROAD
PUNE 411041
2020– 2021

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project phase-I report entitled

“OPTICAL PORT DATA COMMUNICATION USING DLMS COSEM”

Submitted by

Nikhil Ekvachane Exam. No. 71820671B

Soham Tembe Exam. No. 71821587H
Sumeet Upasani Exam. No. 71821614J

is a bonafide work carried out by them under the supervision of Prof. P. G. Chilveri and it is approved for
the partial fulfillment of the requirement of Savitribai Phule Pune University for the award of the Degree
of Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering)

This project Phase-I report has not been earlier submitted to any other Institute or University for the award
of any degree or diploma.

Prof. P.G. Chilveri Prof. Dr. S.K. Jagtap Dr. A.V. Deshpande
Guide Head Principal
Department of E&TC Department of E&TC S.K.N.C.O.E, Pune-41

Place: Pune
Date:

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE I
CERTIFICATE FROM INDUSTRY II
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT III
ABSTRACT IV
LIST OF FIGURES V
LIST OF TABLES VI
NOMENCLATURE VII

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE NO.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND
1.2 RELEVANCE
1.3 PROJECT UNDERTAKEN
1.4 SUMMARY

2. LITERATURE SURVEY
2.1 INTRODUCTION

3. DESIGN AND DRAWING

3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM
3.3 SUMMARY

4. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
4.1 HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS
4.2 SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

5. IMPLEMENTATION
5.1 INTRODUCTION
----------------

6. EXPERIMENTATION
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 -------------------
6.2.1 ------------------

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

6. RESULTS AND DESCUSSION
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 -------------------
6.2.1 -------------------

8. ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES AND APPLICATIONS

9. CONCLUSIONS

10. REFERENCES

11. APPENDIX A

12. APPENDIX B

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND

Energy meters are used for commercial purpose i.e. to record consumption of energy by consumer and
correspondingly billing the consumer. In these days in every sector, there are number of customers
which use the electricity but they are not satisfied with the services provided by power distribution
companies. Electricity authority & the government realizes problems occurring in the existing
transmission network, such as increasing cost due to poor operational efficiency, environmental
impacts and an ongoing demand for energy. The idea of remote metering was born in the 1960s.
Initially, remote pulse transmission was used, but this has gradually been replaced by using various
protocols and communication media. Today’s energy meters are data loggers. Now-a-days, meters with
complex functionality are based on the latest electronic technology, using digital signal processing,
with most functions being implemented in firmware. They give much more than just energy readings.
Meters have a large amount of data, which is not practical to read using the given display and can be
better read electronically.

1.2 RELEVANCE

One of the major components of operational cost in an electrical utility system is the cost of acquiring
data on consumption of the thousands of consumers, spread over a large geographical area, connected
to the system. Typically, acquiring data on energy consumption is accomplished by making a meter
reader visit the premises of each and every consumer and record data manually. Time and again loss of
revenue to the utility occurs because of human errors in acquiring data on the consumption of
individual consumers. Automating the entire process of acquiring data and billing will reduce the cost
by eliminating human intervention in meter reading. The task of collecting data on electricity
consumption without human intervention is popularly known as automatic meter reading (AMR). To
facilitate automatic data collection, the metering systems should be networked. The earlier Common
Meter Reader Instrument (CMRI) had a hardware/ software that used different communication
protocols as provided by various manufacturers to download data from the meters of respective
manufacturers, all of which were generally supplied with their own data exchange formats or protocols.
To ensure interoperability of energy meters, implementing open protocol was the only true solution.
Today for Indian power sector “IEC 62056 Electricity metering – Data exchange for meter reading,
tariff and load control” (DLMS COSEM) is adopted for implementation in meters as the open protocol
for meter data exchange. This series of IEC standards are supported by the Indian Companion
Specification as IS 15959. This project aims to enhance the homogeneity in different makes of meters
by developing a common meter reading instrument that follows DLMS COSEM protocol and reads
any meter data accurately and efficiently.

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

1.3 PROJECT UNDERTAKEN

1.3.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT

To Implement optical port data communication on any microcontroller as per IS 15959 which serves on
DLMS COSEM protocol.

1.3.2 OBJECTIVES

 To study DLMS COSEM object model.

 To study IS 15959 of the DLMS COSEM protocol.
 To design a client for a typical energy meter.
 To develop a reader using Arduino with optical port.
 To develop a method for establishing association between the client and the server to
communicate data optically.

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 2. LITERATURE SURVEY
Introduction:

Lit Survey:
F. Drăgan et. Al has discussed in his paper [1][2] the RS232
serial interface is used to connect the device with the power meter using an appropriate physical layer
communication protocol, like IEC 62056-21. Parameters are identified using short OBIS codes, each value
being followed by its measure unit. A simple message exchange consists of pairs of “queries”,
“acknowledgements” and “responses”.Hiren R. et al.proposed the system having A GSM module has to
be connected with each Energy meter which will increase the overall cost of the system. The most
effective technology of MSP430G microcontroller and CC2500 RF transceiver save the power very
much. The message collection of the meter readings at the utility office is done with the use of one
SIM300 based GSM module same used in the center node and data collector software Ozeking.

[3] Subrata Biswas, Mubinul Haque, Arafat Kabir, Md. Iftekhar Alam, Avijeet Banik, “PC Based
Low-Cost Energy Meter Billing System for Home and Commercial Buildings” International
Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 5, Issue 2, February-2014
a. PC based energy meters can gather data for remote reporting.
b. Radio frequency used in this PC based power monitoring system can take many forms. The
more common ones are handheld, mobile, satellite and fixed network solutions.
c. The software is written in C-sharp because C# language is intended to be a simple, modern,
general-purpose, object-oriented programming language and it can be modified.

[4] Gordan Štruklec, Joško Marši,” Implementing DLMS/COSEM in Smart Meters”, 8th
International Conference on the European Energy MarkeT (EEM), 25-27 May 2011
a. DLMS/COSEM covers all the AMR/AMI application fields and supports all the
communication media (except maybe wireless mesh networks).
b. The lack of the PC client application which includes all (or most of) DLMS features and
which is able to interpret data in a user-friendly way makes the integration process more
difficult and more time-consuming.
c. Main function of an Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system is gathering meter data for
billing in an automated way. Various standard-based techniques enable local or remote
connections to meters, e.g. IEC62056-21, IEC62056-31, M-bus, GSM, GPRS, PSTN,
Internet, PLC.

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

[5] Pradish. M, V. Arunachalam, V. Shivakumar, Mridula Jain, “Testing energy meter
compliance for protocol and performance as per standards”, Central Power Research
Institute, Bangalore.
a. The choice of communication medium is equally important as it along with protocol which
assures seamless connectivity in the chosen distribution network and ensure successful
implementation of the application.
b. The application software at either end aided by a common open protocol can exchange required
information as and when needed.
c. Interoperability could be defined as “The ability of a system or a product to work with other
systems or products without special effort on the part of the customer”
– Any system can read any meter
– No special involvement of vendors

[6] Central Electricity Authority, Central Power Research Institute, “Functional requirements for
Common Meter Reading Instrument”, December 2011.
a. CMRI supports two modes of operation: CLIENT_MODE and SERVER_MODE.
b. In CLIENT_MODE, CMRI reads and displays selectively or all the instantaneous values,
Energy values and demand values, etc., that are specified in ICS.
c. CMRI downloads data from the various meters.
d. CMRI also uploads programmable parameters for desired meters.
e. In SERVER_MODE, CMRI uploads to BCS all the downloaded data from various meters.

[7] “DATA EXCHANGE FOR ELECTRICITY METER READING, TARIFF AND LOAD
CONTROL COMPANION SPECIFICATION”, April 2011, Bureau of Indian Standards
a. This document provides a suitable approach to the implementation of the IEC-62056 standards
and this Indian Companion Specification in such devices.
b. For each logical device the DLMS/COSEM server shall support one association with
properties, objects, and access rights adequate for transferring the stored data of the
corresponding meter to the BCS in an efficient manner. The server within the HHU is not
required to support ad-hoc access or selective access to the data that differs from the requests
which were earlier used to read the data from the meter.
c. HHUs (Hand Held Units also called CMRI or MRI) may retrieve data from DLMS/COSEM
Meters conforming to this standard using the communication ports.
d. HHUs shall provide a DLMS/COSEM server interface to the BCS (Base Computer System —
the Data collection software) over a suitable communication medium
[8] Blue Book Edition 12.2: COSEM Interface Classes and OBIS Object Identification System,
DLMS User Association, 19th Jan 2017.
a. This guide describes the basic principles on which the COSEM interface classes (ICs) are built.
It also gives a short overview on how interface objects – instantiations of the ICs – are used for
communication purposes.
b. Data collection systems and metering equipment from different vendors, following these
specifications, can exchange data in an interoperable way.
c. In order to access COSEM objects in the server, an application association (AA) shall first be
established with a client. AAs identify the partners and characterize the context within which
the associated applications will communicate.

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 d. OBIS provides a unique identifier for all data within the metering equipment, including not
only measurement values, but also abstract values used for configuration or obtaining
information about the behavior of the metering equipment.
e. The ID codes defined in this document are used for the identification of:
i. logical names of the instances of the Interface Classes, the objects
ii. data transmitted through communication lines
iii. data displayed on the metering equipment

[9] Green Book Edition 9: Companion Specification for Energy Metering DLMS/COSEM
Architecture and Protocols, DLMS User Association, 5th August 2019.
a. The DLMS/COSEM specification specifies an interface model and communication protocols
for data exchange with metering equipment.
b. The objective of DLMS/COSEM is to specify a standard for a business domain-oriented
interface object model for metering devices and systems, as well as services to access the
objects.
c. This Technical report, the “Green Book” specifies the DLMS/COSEM application layer, lower
protocol layers and communication profiles.
d. DLMS/COSEM uses the concepts of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model to model
information exchange between meters and data collection systems.
e. Data exchange between data collection systems and metering devices is based on the
client/server model where data collection systems play the role of the client and metering
devices play the role of the server.
f. The client sends service requests to the server which sends service responses. In addition, the
server may initiate unsolicited service requests to inform the client about events or to send data
on pre-configured conditions.

g. Fig. 1 Client-server model and communication protocols

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 h.

3. DESIGN AND DESCRIPTION

3.1 SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM

Fig. 1 Block Diagram of Optical Port Data Communication using DLMS/COSEM

The above block diagram describes the system that we are introducing in this project. This system broadly
consists of a meter which acts as a server while the reader device acts as the client. As described in the
block diagram, the Digital Energy Meter acts as an interface between the user and the power supply from
the energy provider. The Reader device consists of an Optical sensor, a microcontroller and a user
interface (Laptop/PC). Let’s understand their functions as following:

A. Optical Sensor
Common Optical Probe with Optical band width 900 to 1000 Nano meters is used here whose optical eye
is connected to the meter and the USB end is connected to the Microcontroller. The Optical sensor acts as
a communication channel between Meter and Reader. Its main function is to collect data through the
Optical port present on the Energy Meter.

B. Microcontroller
Microcontroller acts as the heart of our project. Here we are using Arduino Uno (ATMEGA 328P) as our
microcontroller. It establishes an association between the server (Energy Meter) and the Client (Reader).
The main function of the microcontroller unit is to interpret the data received from the meter.

C. User Interface (Laptop/PC)

This unit acts as the user interface between the user and the Reader device. It displays the data acquired
from the meter for better understanding and acts as a terminal to send commands to communicate with the
Server (Energy Meter). For this project, we use Laptop as the User Interface which is connected with the
Microcontroller unit.

According to the proposed methodology, we put together a reader device using Arduino Uno (ATMEGA
328P) and connecting it to the Energy Meter through the Optical probe. With the help of the terminal
displayed on the User Interface, we establish an association with the Energy meter after successfully
completing a process called “Hand-shake”. Later on, we communicate with the Energy Meter and acquire
data from it in the form of electrical parameters which is made visible on the User Interface Display

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 4. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

A. Hardware Specification
a. Micro-controller – Arduino Uno (ATMEGA 328P)
b. Common Optical Probe with Optical band width 900 to 1000 Nano meters
c. User Interface- Laptop/PC
B. Software Specification
a. Visual Studio Code
b. Python 3.7
i. Python is a general-purpose object-oriented programming language with high-level
programming capabilities. It has become famous because of its apparent and easily
understandable syntax, portability and easy to learn. Python is a programming
language that includes features of C and Java. It provides the style of writing an
elegant code like C, and for object-oriented programming, it offers classes and objects
like Java.
ii. Python is derived from programming languages such as ABC, Modula 3, small talk,
Algol-68.
iii. Python page is a file with a .py extension that contains could be the combination of
HTML Tags and Python scripts.
c. Arduino IDE 1.8.13

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 7. ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES AND APPLICATIONS

7.1 ADVANTAGES

a. Data is read electronically. Hence, human errors eliminated.

b. Can read meters by different manufacturers accurately.
c. Capable to communicate with static energy meters or computers.
d. Interoperability is brought about by the implementation of DLMS COSEM.

7.2 DISADVANTAGES

a. Cannot eliminate the need of human involvement.

b. Base Computer Software (BCS) are needed for data interpretation of complex electrical
parameters.

7.3 APPLICATIONS
a. Used for data reading from various makes of meters.

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 8. CONCLUSION

There are many communication technologies used today for meter reading applications, but lack the
properties of interoperability and homogeneity. Device described in this project is a solution for meter
reading system with capabilities of local display of electrical parameters. In advancement, wireless
modules can be used along with other technologies and result can be further improved.

9. SCOPE FOR FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

Creating a smart meter architecture minimizes human intervention in metering, billing and collection
process and helps in reducing theft by identifying loss pockets. It requires a two-way communication
network, control center equipment and software applications that enable near real-time gathering and
transfer of energy usage information. India is aiming to replace the present-day digital meters with the
smart meters in near future. In terms of future enhancements, the Reader device introduced in our project
will act as an important intermediate block which will simplify the process of bridging the present model
of digital meters to the aimed smart meters without incurring heavy losses as well as cutting down the
expanses of replacing and discarding the old digital meter. Our reader device basically turns the present-
day digital meters to be compatible with the aimed Smart meters.

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering

 10. REFERENCES

[1] Subrata Biswas, Mubinul Haque, Arafat Kabir, Md. Iftekhar Alam, Avijeet Banik, “PC Based Low-
Cost Energy Meter Billing System for Home and Commercial Buildings” International Journal of
Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 5, Issue 2, February-2014
[2] F. Drăgan, R. Holonec and R. Copîndean, "Local Monitoring / Recording and Display Device for
Power Electricity Meter, using IEC 62056–21 Local AMR application device, hardware solution,
for DLMS-COSEM based Power Meters," 2019 8th International Conference on Modern Power
Systems (MPS), Cluj Napoca, Romania, 2019
[3] Hiren R. Zala, Viranchi C. Pandya,” Energy Meter Data Acquisition System with Wireless
Communication for Smart Metering Application” International Journal of Engineering Research &
Technology (IJERT), Vol. 3 Issue 11, November-2014
[4] Gordon Struklec, Josko Marsi,” Implementing DLMS/COSEM in Smart Meters”, 8th International
Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), 25-27 May 2011
[5] Pradish. M, V. Arunachalam, V. Shivakumar, Mridula Jain, “Testing energy meter compliance for
protocol and performance as per standards”, Central Power Research Institute, Bangalore.
[6] “Functional Requirements for Common Meter Reading Instrument” by Central Electricity Authority
and Central Power Research Institute, December 2011
[7] “Testing energy meter compliance for protocol and performance as per standards”, Central Power
Research Institute, Bangalore.
[8] Excerpt – “COSEM Interface Classes and OBIS Object Identification System”, Edition 12.2, DLMS
User Association, January 2017
[9] Excerpt – “DLMS/COSEM Architecture and Protocols”, Edition 9, DLMS User Association, May
2019

SKNCOE. Pune-41, Dept. of E&TC Engineering