TRANSFORMER WIRELESS MONITORING SYSTEM USING ARDUINO/XBEE

Abstract

Distribution transformers are generally provided with advanced control measures that ensure their operation and safety at a high reliability because their failure usually leads to long power outage, increase maintenance cost and unreliable provision of electricity to customers. Despite the protection measures that accompany a distribution transformer, there is still a need to provide extra remote monitoring systems to increase the reliability of operation and the confidence of instantaneous fault reporting. This paper deals with the design and construction of automatic monitoring system for power transformer parameters. An Arduino board coupled with XBEE module were programmed to enable the monitoring of voltage, current and temperature on a typical power transformer. The system was implemented and tested successfully. Results showed that the voltage versus temperature as well as current versus voltage characteristic obtained, were closed to datasheet specifications and therefore confirming the reliability of the proposed design. This system is therefore recommended as an additional protection that should be added to Power Transformers.

Existing System

Proposed System

The proposed wireless monitoring system is derived from a set of different components selected in the field of electrical and electronics engineering. This system provides a real time monitoring of temperature, current, voltage and vibration of the transformer to enable the utility provider pinpoint problems on the transformer and the grid and proactively attend to them to minimize unplanned outages. The component of the proposed system consists of a microcontroller, an XBEE module, a temperature sensor, a current sensor, and a voltage sensor. The components are grouped into the following units: sensing unit, processing unit, transmitter unit and receiver unit. In the transmitter unit when the system is turned on, the microcontroller at the transmitter unit system reads and process signals from the temperature, current and voltage sensors of the sensing unit and then sends this information to the XBEE module to be relayed wirelessly. In the receiver unit, after the information has been relayed wirelessly from the transmitter unit, the same information is received by the XBEE at the receiver unit and sent to the microcontroller. The microcontroller then segregates the data appropriately using synchronizing characters sent from the transmitter. These characters are ‘T’ for temperature, ‘I’ for current and ‘V’ for voltage. With the help of these characters, the microcontroller is able to differentiate between the data relating to the physical quantities mentioned above. The microcontroller then processes the data for the various quantities and displays the results on the LCD screen.

Architecture

TRANSMITTER SECTION

RECEIVER SECTION