Granted Patent B2

US 8,275,561 · App. 12/435,813 · Granted Sep 25, 2012

Abstract

Claims (46)

1. A method comprising:

receiving a set of transition reports, each transition report of the set of transition reports corresponding to a different respective transition each of a respective electrical device of a plurality of electrical devices between an off state and an on state, each transition report including a plurality of transition parameters characterizing a respective condition of a common alternating current service for variously powering each of the plurality of electrical devices, wherein each of the plurality of transition parameters of the set of transition reports includes a change in active power parameter value;

with a processor, identifying from the set of transition reports a cluster of on-transition reports, each on-transition report of the cluster describing a transition of a respective one of the plurality of electrical devices to an on state, the identifying the cluster including:

for each active power value of a plurality of active power values, determining a respective count of a number of the change in active power parameter values of the set of transition reports which are within an active power range for the active power value; and

identifying a local maximum of the respective counts as being associated with the cluster;

based on the identified cluster, creating in a memory device a data structure characterizing a first device of the plurality of electrical devices, said data structure comprising a plurality of on-transition characterization parameters, wherein values of said on-transition characterization parameters are determined based on transition parameters of the cluster of on-transition reports;

identifying one of the set of transition reports as being an off-transition report associated with the first device;

based on the identified off-transition report, determining one or more values for a plurality of off-transition characterization parameters of the data structure; and

providing the data structure for an automatic determining of whether a first transition report subsequent to the set of transition reports corresponds to the first device.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining whether the first transition report corresponds to the first device includes one of:

identifying an on state for the given device based on a comparison of transition parameters of the first transition report with on-transition characterization parameter values in the data structure; and

identifying an off state for the given device based on a comparison of transition parameters of the first transition report with off-transition characterization parameter values in the data structure.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

creating a time trace for the first device, said time trace comprising the time of occurrence of each said transition report corresponding to the first device, wherein said time trace comprises a representation of a history of an on-off state of the first device.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

displaying to a user a representation of the first device and a representation of an on-off state of the first device.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining based on the data structure a power use by the first device during an on state of the first device; and

displaying to a user a representation of the first device and a representation of the determined power use by first device during the on state of the first device.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

creating a time trace for the first device, said time trace comprising a respective time of occurrence of each one of multiple transition reports corresponding to the first device;

wherein the determining the power use by the first device based on the data structure includes determining the power use based on the time trace.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

generating a trace display for the user, said trace display comprising a representation of the first device and a representation of the time trace.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising processing a set of electrical parameters repeatedly at a frequency of substantially 60 Hz, each processing of the set of electrical parameters to generate a respective one of the set of transition reports.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of transition reports each include a second-difference current parameter value.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of transition reports each include a third-difference current parameter value.

11. The method of claim 1 , the identifying the cluster further comprising:

based on the identifying the local maximum, sorting a subset of the transition reports; and

searching for a sub-cluster within the sorted subset of the transition reports.

12. A device comprising:

sensors to produce signals representative of conditions of a common alternating current service for variously powering each of the plurality of electrical devices;

an analog-to-digital conversion circuit to sample and to measure said signals;

a digital processing circuit to process the sampled signals to produce a plurality of electrical parameter values;

a preprocessing circuit to generate based on the plurality of electrical parameter values a set of transition reports, each transition report of the set of transition reports corresponding to a different respective transition each of a respective electrical device of a plurality of electrical devices between an off state and an on state, each transition report including a plurality of transition parameters characterizing a respective condition of a common alternating current service for variously powering each of the plurality of electrical devices, wherein each of the plurality of transition parameters of the set of transition reports includes a change in active power value;

a data memory to store said set of transition reports; and

a processing circuit to:

identify from the set of transition reports a cluster of on-transition reports, each on-transition report of the cluster describing a transition of a respective one of the plurality of electrical devices to an on state, the processing circuit to identify the cluster including:

for each active power value of a plurality of active power values, the processing circuit to determine a respective count of a number of the change in active power parameter values of the set of transition reports which are within an active power range for the active power value; and

the processing circuit to identify a local maximum of the respective counts as being associated with the cluster;

create, based on the identified cluster, a data structure characterizing a first device of the plurality of electrical devices, said data structure comprising a plurality of on-transition characterization parameters, wherein values of said on-transition characterization parameters are determined based on transition parameters of the cluster of on-transition reports;

identify one of the set of transition reports as being an off-transition report associated with the first device;

determine, based on the identified off-transition report, one or more values for a plurality of off-transition characterization parameters of the data structure; and

provide the data structure for an automatic determining of whether a first transition report subsequent to the set of transition reports corresponds to the first device.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transition reports are generated based on a processing of electrical parameters which is performed approximately once per alternating current cycle of the common alternating current service.

14. The device of claim 12 , wherein the pre-processing circuit to generate the set of transition reports includes the pre-processing circuit to process electrical parameters approximately once per alternating current cycle of the common alternating current service.

Assignments (6)