Low-cost power measurement circuit
View Patent ↗In embodiments of the present invention, a method and system is provided for designing improved intelligent, LED-based lighting systems. The LED based lighting systems may include fixtures with one or more of rotatable LED light bars, integrated sensors, onboard intelligence to receive signals from the LED light bars and control the LED light bars, and a mesh network connectivity to other fixtures.
1. A power measurement system, comprising:
an optoisolator and a Zener diode in electrical communication with one another and an AC power line;
a current transformer in electrical communication with the AC power line that provides an isolated current measurement;
a temperature sensor, located in proximity to the Zener diode that measures a temperature of the system and communicates the temperature to a temperature compensation system; and
a processor that decodes the AC voltage pulses, by measuring the digital pulse width which is indicative of the amount of time the AC voltage spends above a Zener reference voltage, to determine an instantaneous AC voltage, the processor further combining the instantaneous AC voltage with the analog current measurement to provide an instantaneous power consumption.
2. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the optoisolator is in parallel with the Zener diode.
3. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the temperature sensor is a contact temperature sensor.
4. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the temperature sensor is a non-contact temperature sensor.
5. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the temperature sensor is configured to measure a temperature difference associated with a light-emitted diode (LED) in a lighting fixture.
6. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the temperature sensor is located on an external surface of a lighting fixture.
7. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the temperature compensation system uses at least one measurement from the temperature sensor to apply temperature compensation to a lighting fixture.
8. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the processor comprises at least one of a microprocessor and a microcontroller.
9. The power measurement system of claim 1 , wherein the Zener reference voltage is less than a minimum value of the AC voltage.