Intelligent Energy Monitoring System Based on
ZigBee-Equipped Smart Sockets
Mon-Chau Shie, Po-Chen Lin, Tsung-Mao Su, Poki Chen and Antony Hutahaean
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Email: mice@mail.ntust.edu.tw, wintermox@gmail.com, m9902101@mail.ntust.edu.tw, poki@mail.ntust.edu.tw,
antony24hutahaean@gmail.com
Abstract—The intelligent home appliance monitoring is the
mainstream development of the future automation and
networking technology. Appliance operation can be easily
monitored through sensing and other similar perceptions of the
corresponding power link. These products of smart energy
monitoring system communicate with one another via intelligent
sockets equipped with ZigBee wireless transceivers. A home-
based remote server enables remote monitoring and control of
electrical home appliances. The use of mobile internet in portable
devices, especially in smartphones and tablet PCs, provides great
advantage and flexibility for remote control. The status and
power consumption information of all monitored appliances are
stored in the remote server. The corresponding analysis of such
power consumption data can be provided to the power company
for smart grid planning and the user for energy saving through
rescheduling and safe power usage via abnormal situation
warning.
Index Terms - Smart Socket, ZigBee, MCU, Smart Energy
Monitor, Intelligent Control
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper proposes an intelligent system that provides
users with fruitful functions for the monitoring and remote
control of home appliances. The use of mobile devices has
even extended the range of possibilities of smart control since
the operations may be implemented on the mobile devices to
make the intelligent control more accessible and flexible. The
use of mobile devices is not only for sensing electrical device
status but also for monitoring power consumption and
receiving warnings of improper use of electrical energy. In the
future, every single electrically powered device at home will
be possible to be “seen” by user’s mobile devices and ready to
be controlled and thoroughly monitored. All of the
abovementioned thoughts will be realizable with an extensive
use of intelligent socket systems integrating automatic power
measurement modules and wireless network controller. It is
similar to home automation with remote control of all
accessed nodes. All the nodes connected to home loads act as
relay stations. The information exchange regarding power
consumption will be uploaded to a remote database and web
servers, and thus an analysis of electricity usage data will be
provided. In the web, user will be supplied with a remote
control interface for a graphic monitoring and energy state
management. Due to the large amount of consumption data,
measurements are to be made according to the available
information and analysis of consumed electricity.
Implementation of the intelligent energy monitoring system
will achieve a safe use of household appliances and reach the
target of energy-saving by remotely controlling the operation
state of devices. It can also reduce the cost for total energy
consumption through effective management and consumption
time re-distribution.
It’s an urgent mission to reduce carbon emission by saving
energy consumption for all countries on earth. Since Taiwan is
a small country with a relatively high population density,
energy consumption efficiency becomes a more significant
issue than in other countries. In terms of electrical energy
demand, a random family unit can effectively save energy by
using the energy monitoring system. For example, proper
planning of electricity consumption for each household level
will likely avoid a massive energy wastage. It will surely help
to achieve a sustainable development of Taiwan's energy
sector. More importantly, the proposed system has a security
warning mechanism. People spend most of their time at home
and therefore to provide a safe and secure home environment
for humankinds is a really a matter of concern. The use of
more home appliances means not only more convenience but
also more risk caused by improper use or malfunction of
appliances which may potentially result in fire later on. A
complete monitoring system, which includes real-time
monitoring, remote control and abnormal warning
notifications to control home appliances, is surely required. To
solve all the problems mentioned above, the proposed
intelligent power monitoring system focuses mainly on
energy-saving and disaster prevention. Accordingly, timing
devices are intelligently used for appliance scheduling to make
life much more convenient and substantially reduce the
electricity cost. Also, real-time monitoring is adopted to
improve home security. In the future, the proposed system can
integrate more existing technologies, such as home security
system, monitors, fire alarms, smoke detectors, and automatic
sprinkler system, to provide users more security and
functionality. The establishment of a truly intelligent energy
consuming environment starts from private apartments or
houses and then expands all over the communities, cites or
even to larger areas, if negotiation among regional power
companies can be made. It will provide smart electricity
mannagement, enhhance the levvel of powerr monitoring and statiistics to get riid of the neceessity of apply
ying manpoweer for
effecctively controol the energgy supply an
nd use to reeduce read
ding power meetering data eeach month. The T reading errror is
unneecessary loss and form a complete “p power monitooring also
o eliminated au utomatically.
umbbrella”.
Implementatio
I on of this conncept is similaar to that of home
h
II. CONCEPT OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEM autoomation with remote contrrol of the nod des. The propposed
intellligent sockeet system inntegrates pow wer measureement
A. Internet
I of Thiings
mod dules with wireless
w netwwork controll. All the nodes n
Nowadays,
N thhe term “interrnet of things” begins to gain conn nected to the home loads act as relay stations also.. The
moree and more cooncerns for thhe world surro ounded by var arious info
ormation exchaange regardinng power savin ng is uploadedd to a
electtronic devicess. Without theem, our lives would
w become
me not remote database and web servvers. Thus, an analysis off user
so comfortable
c annd relaxed. Most
M current electronic devvices elecctricity consum
mption can be provided.
equipped with prrocessors or microcontrolle
m ers are able tto be
connnected with thhe “outer woorld”. In other words, theyy are
couppled by meanss of internet. These
T numerous devices conntain
speccific functionss that they weere made for,, such as wasshing
mach hine for cleanning clothes and
a kitchen oveno for prepaaring
foodd … etc. Thesse exemplary appliances
a aree brought to ““life”
in thhe way how we have gott used to them m through sim mple
mannual adjustmennt. Much morre convenience can be expeected
if these
t devicess can be operated
o witthout any ddirect
anth
hropogenic innterference. At A current staage, the term m of
“inteernet of thinggs” seems to be a good so olution. Theree are
varioous kinds of ssystems that implement
i thee idea of “intternet
of things”,
t but all of them have thee same targget -
interrconnection of various devvices and effeective control over Fig.2. Architectu
ure of the proposeed smart energy monitoring
m system
m
them
m.
In
I terms of web, a remo mote control interface
i musst be
pressented under user’s queryy. Due to thee large amounnt of
conssumption dataa, measuremeents are to bee made only when w
neceessary. Also reducing the fr frequency of measurement
m m
might
playy a big role in
n striving to thhe goal of eneergy-saving. Fig.
F 2
illusstrates the enttire structure of the proposed system whose
w
smaart socket usess FET (field-efffect transisto
or) as power sw
witch
and ZigBee module for wirreless commu unication. ZiigBee
mod dule transmits the electricitty usage data including volltage,
currrent, power, energy
e and poower factor (P
PF) to monitoor the
elecctricity load att home. Userss may connecct through Intternet
to a remote serveer that monitoors all active devices to geet the
Fig.1. Functtional block diagrram of the GSM Power
P Meter
powwer consumption curves of tthe interested nodes.

B. Power
P Measurring Modules C. Smart Grid and Intelligentt Socket System ms
As
A technologyy evolved, soocket and meter so far aree not Any
A househoold appliancess needs to be b connected to a
simpple links betwween power annd device onlly. A combinnation sockket. A socket represents a ccertain node “reachable”
“ in each
of ellectronic commponents allow ws users to haave better life than family and invokees the idea off smart home-aautomation syystem
befo
ore. For exampple [1], an inffrared remote controller is used creaation. It also promotes thee establishmen nt of a large--scale
to sw
witch socket aand set scheddule. It can no ot only be useed in smaart grid with h the integgration of powerp generaation,
homme environmennt but also bee applied to industrial
i opeerator transmission and distribution to form a com mplete energy cycle
that cannot be poositioned too close to the outlet
o due to high [3]. The idea off a smart gridd is differentt from that of o the
tempperature or higgh-pressure. The
T effective operating disttance traditional one-w way power neetwork. Userss are now abble to
is approximately
a y 8 meters whichw makes it applicablle to acceess complete electricity innformation an nd bi-directioonally
vario
ous environm mental condittions. Smart meters also take exchhange it with power comppanies. One major m differennce of
advaantage of GS SM module which impleements the A AMR smaart grid from the
t existing ppower supply system will be in
technnology (Autoomatic meterr Reading) [2 2]. The statuus of alloccating and addjusting differrent periods of
o electricity usage
u
electtricity user iss transferred by
b means of SMS messag es to to acchieve energyy-saving [4].
powwer companies as shown in Fig. F 1. The po ower companiees, in The
T concept of o a smart gridd is founded on
o the idea thhat by
turn,, can automaatically updatte the user's electricity uusage sharring information concerningg allocation ofo the most opptimal
powwer resources, electrical devvices are pow wered throughh the conssumption dataa wirelessly ffrom smart so ocket to the home
h
help of some speecial-purpose sensors. A deense and com mplete loadd monitor and even further to mobile po ortable devicess. All
electtrical networkk is thus formeed. It not onlyy reduces the ccosts, smaart sockets in nstalled withiin one living g space unit (i.e.
enhaances reliabiliity but also improves effi ficiency of ennergy priv
vate house, flaat in apartmenent house, or cottage) are quasi
usagge. In the futuure, the convventional pow wer system wiill be merged by one single supervvising ZigBeee coordinator.. The
commpletely replacced with the smart grid. It I will result in a ormation of all
info a smart sockkets installed d within the same
chan nge of the eelectricity bill that will carry c much m more livin
ng space unitt will be colllected through h ZigBee prootocol
detaiiled consumpption informaation. The fig gures of dailly or and synchronouslly pushed to tthe home serv ver, also know wn as
mon nthly energy consumption will no longer be displaayed. homme load monittor. The wholle cycle of po ower consum mption
Insteead, the montthly power coonsumption will w be represeented info
ormation co ollection inncludes two o more steps: s
as a "power curvve" which grraphically deescribes electrricity commmunicating with
w an exterrnal database (in our casee, the
conssumption in a great detaill. It will even n enable userers to serv
ver is installed
d in our researrch laboratory
y) and bidirecttional
peneetrate into the hourly analyysis of power estimation. P ower connnection of mo obile device, ssuch as smartpphone or tableet PC
commpanies will also acquire new w "time tarifff "charges. In oother withh the databasse. The inforrmation aboutt electrical power p
word ds, the use off electricity duuring the day y will be splitt into conssumption is pu ushed throughh different staages to finallyy land
perioods of peak hhours with higgher rates and d off-peak pereriods in user’s
u smart device. Thee last stage equips user with
withh correspondinngly lower onnes. The user will be motivvated mon nitoring and controlling funnctions. In oth
her words, useer has
to taake advantage of the off-peak energy perriods and conssume the capability
c of turning
t on/offf any of the electrical devicces at
the high-price
h tariiffed electricaal energy of peeak hours onlly for homme when necesssary, setting operation perriods for them m and
highhly needed elecctronic devicees. distaantly tracking the actual eneergy consumpption level.

D. Prerequisities
P of a Smart Syystem Implemeentation B. General
G Systeem Architecturre
Facing
F harsh competition and environ nmental prote ction Never
N mind whether
w uses aare at home orr not, smart ennergy
issuees, effective electric pow wer managem ment is acti tively mon nitoring system m provides thhem the inforrmation of enaabled
prom moted. Improvving power suupply efficien ncy has becom me a elecctrical appliancces and the ussage of electriical energy inn their
goal of many counntries to vigorrously supporrt and facilitatte the housses. These ellectrical appliliances are co onnected to smart
s
integgration of disstributed geneeration, smartt grid and ennergy sockkets which aree able to meaasure voltage,, current and other
inforrmation appliications. Smaart grid consstruction and ICT relevvant electricaal data. Thee use of sho ort-range wirreless
(Infoormation Com mmunication Technology)) applicationn are netwwork transmisssion protocool - ZigBee is i to transfer data
utilizzed together to provide automatic control c (e.g. self- relatted to electriical load tow wards the mo onitoring servver at
healiing), demaand responsse management, real--time homme. All data will be availlable under user u inquiry. User
measurement (insstant informaation), and th he optimal p ower interrface is design ned to sort daata of power usage
u and stattistics
conffiguration function. Such measures
m will contribute a llot to accoording to the date and timee. In the future, this inform mation
the power sectoor as well as a to supply y integration and can also be impleemented into tthe power currve map to annalyze
scheeduling maanagement. For pow
wer compaanies, the process of po ower usage foor cost and en nergy saving. It is
impllementation oof intelligentt power supp ply and effeective o possible to monitor
also m home electricity loaad data by sennding
transsmission systeems will be of a great beneefit of being aaware info
ormation via internet (TC CP/IP protoco ol) to the reemote
of prrecise power usage and haaving a clear grasp
g of the uuser’s dataabase server. It I further exppands the rang ge of home ennergy
enerrgy demands in order to allocate electtricity effectiively. mon nitoring. The users having internet acceessible devicees are
With h the implemeentation of smmart grid and specific timee unit ablee to monitor homeh electriccity consumpttion in a reall-time
tarifff, user can mmanage electrrical load wh hen the electrricity way y. If the user forgets
f to turnn off electricaal appliances when
w
peak k and off-peakk becomes obvious. Since the t electricityy cost he goes
g out, afterr logging on tto the internett, it is possiblle for
is ex xpected to riise in near future,
f these measures willl be him to control theese devices rem motely.
extreemely useful. Moreover, onne of the main n advantages oof the
smarrt grid implem mentation is tot conduct an n effective rem mote
operration of homee appliances [55].

III. SYSTEM FEATUR

RES AND SPECIIFICATIONS

A. Intelligent
I Pow
wer Monitorinng System in Reality
R
As
A shown in F Fig. 2, the overall structure consists
c of a ssmart Fig.3. Da
ata flow of smartt energy monitoring system
sock
ket system witth a home-bassed load monitor and the rem mote
server to achievve electrical appliances monitoring.
m Each Fig.
F 3 depictss the data floow of smart energy
e monittoring
electtrical device is powered by b a so-calleed “smart soccket” arch
hitecture. Thee communiccation protocols involvedd are
whicch is pluggedd into a poweer outlet and equipped witth an ZigB
Bee and TC CP/IP. Smartt socket com mposes of powerp
indiv
vidual MCU aand ZigBee module.
m By meeans of integrrating meaasurement chhip, micro-coontrol unit MCU
M (i.e. 8051,
8
ZigB
Bee modules, the system is able to transmit the p ower Corttex-M3) and ZigBee
Z modulle which is inttegrated with 8051
micrroprocessor foor wireless coommunication n. The MCU core size of the amoun nt of transferrred data. At home,
h it is opptimal
takes control overr the entire socket. A switch hing power suupply to choose
c a shoort-range wireeless transmission for a small
provvides 5V pow wer for MCU U and a low dropout reguulator amoount of data to
o be transmitteed. On the conntrary, for extternal
deliv
vers 3.3V pow wer for ZigBeee module. Power feeds thrrough transmission, larrge amount of data sen nt needs a stable
s
powwer measurem ment chip for voltag ge and cuurrent broaadband transmmission as w well as extern nal remote server
s
measurements ass shown in Fig. F 4. For home-based load connnection. Therefore, the prooposed system m adopted ZiigBee
monnitor, we use A ARM9 embeddded device along a with ZiggBee for short-range wireless trannsmission an nd TCP / IP P for
moddule. After recceiving the infformation from smart sockket, it broaadband transm
mission.
storees and resentss the data to thhe remote dattabase for stoorage.
Then n, the informmation is processed on a website
w to proovide The
T main featture of ZigBeee used is low-cost, low pow wer as
user-friendly inquuiry system based
b on timee and date o f the welll as two-way y transmissioon (Mesh Neetwork) and high
data collected. Ussers can also set searching g or alarm opptions reliaability. An ord
dinary ZigBeee device can exploit the baattery
for unusual
u casess of electricityy use. Base on o the analyssis of sourrce from a feww months up tto several yeaars, It fits the need
houssehold electriccity usage, it can
c provide po ower consumpption of common
c senso
or networks. The main staandards of ZiigBee
curv
ve monthly. It can also provvide users with h different opttions, are IEEE
I 802.15.4 and Alliancce organizationn correspondiing to
suchh as particularr time and coonsumption paattern. Even bbeing harddware and so oftware devellopments. Th he IEEE 8022.15.4
far from “nativee lands”, useer can set on ne of the loowest stan
ndard is a speccification of th
the medium acccess control layer
electtrical consummption patterns. On the oth her hand, userr can and physical lay yer. Physical layer (PHY Y) includes media
m
chooose some modde for a perioodically turnin ng on / off hhouse storaage control layer (MAC C), data link layer and other
lightts for prevennting any buurglar or oth her housebreaaking deveelopments. Alliance
A is ressponsible forr logical netwwork,
activ
vities. But, peerhaps, the moost important function out oof all encrrypted data transfer meechanism, ap pplication syystem
others is to provvide warningg notice in case c of abnoormal interrface specifiications and interoperabiility of diffferent
conssumption of eenergy. The system will send messagees to prodduct specificattions.
notiffy user for unaanticipated orr extreme casees of electricityy use
as well
w as otheer abnormal situations with w potentiaal of E. Home
H Load Monitor
M
unfoortunate conseequences. Whhen necessary y, auto power er off
The
T main con nstituents integgrated in hom
me load monitoor are
modde can be acctivated to prrevent occurrrence of fire and
the embedded microprocessor
m r and ZigBeee wireless moodule.
decrrease the rate oof ineffective use of electriccal energy.
Dataa transmission is put intoo effect by RS232
R serial data
com
mmunication in nterface standdard. It is ussed to monitoor the
housse equipped with
w smart sockkets as shown n in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Home load monitor witth a connection to

o smart sockets
Fig.44. Hardware archiitecture of smart socket
s
The
T monitor has h a LCD touuch screen to provide userss with
a usser-friendly graphical interfa
face. In this sy
ystem, we use “Qt”
C. Power
P Measurrement Modulle for GUI applicattion developm ment. Qt is a platform of C++
In
I order to reeduce the trannsmission lossses of the eleectric proggramming lan nguage appliccation develo opment frameework
pow
wer, most counntries deliverr high-voltagee AC power from whicch is widely used
u in the devvelopment of GUI program ms. Qt
pow
wer plants to end users. How wever, load cu
urrent and vooltage is frreely downloaadable and prresents itself as an open soource
are not
n always inn phase. Theree, the module needs to meaasure softwware. It is released under tthe GNU Lesser General Public
P
not only voltage and current but also pow wer factor (PF F) to Liceense terms. AllA versions oof Qt supportt a wide rangge of
calcuulate the real ppower consum
med. commpilers, inclu uding GCC, C++ and Visual Sttudio.
Opeerational funcctions of the load monito or include reemote
D. ZigBee
Z Wireleess Transmissiion Module swittching, analyssis of the elecctricity consum mption curvess and
Energy
E monitooring system can
c be divided into internaal and otheer related qu ueries. For iinterfacing, alla the accesssible
exterrnal transmisssions betweeen devices. TheT differencce of applliances are displayed
d forr fast user in nquiry. It is also
interrnal and exteernal transmisssions consistts in distancee and posssible to increaase the securiity features, such
s as warniing at
exit about any of the electrical devices left unturned off, family life more smart and comfortable than before.
setting time span for some of home appliances, conducting
precaution measures in case of electrical abnormalities as well ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
as other warning functions. The authors would like to express their deep appreciation
to Taiwanese Ministry of Education (MOE) for the funding
F. Remote Server support to implement the overall system.
Remote server is used to provide user with the possibility
to distantly monitor the electrical usage at home (while not REFERENCES
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(active electrical device) via internet or a mobile
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IV. CONCLUSION
The proposed smart energy monitoring system effectively
builds a friendly interface between home appliances and users.
It composes of three subsystems: smart socket, home load
monitor and remote server. All subsystems can with
communicate with one another in a fast and efficient way.
ZigBee protocol is proven to be a reliable and the effective
means of wireless information transmission between smart
sockets and home load monitor. This energy monitoring
system increases the security of our daily lives. Currently, it is
designed in framework of one single apartment. In the future,
however, the power monitoring system will be extended to a
building or even to an entire district. The major target of the
system is to reject any hazard caused by abnormal electrical
state and to minimize the potential damage if such is
unavoidable. Nevertheless, the main advantage of the system
implementation will be based on energy saving and efficient
power supply that will be based on scheduling and effective
energy resource allocation. All these functions will make a