1 GHz無(wú)線智能電表接口的設(shè)計(jì)

　　智能電表是創(chuàng)建智能家居的核心。能夠衡量家庭的總體電力使用情況并將數(shù)據(jù)反饋給公用事業(yè)是管理公用電網(wǎng)負(fù)荷并最終減少用戶賬單的關(guān)鍵因素。

　　增加無(wú)線連接到電表是相對(duì)簡(jiǎn)單的最新的射頻模塊。這些提供了所有在特定地理區(qū)域認(rèn)證的rf連接。然而，這些模塊需要連接到儀表上直接獲取數(shù)據(jù)，或者連接到電流消耗的傳感器。這可以用低成本的8位微控制器相對(duì)容易地完成。

　　使用不受管制的子1 GHz頻段具有智能儀表設(shè)計(jì)的許多優(yōu)點(diǎn)。較低的頻率進(jìn)行較低的數(shù)據(jù)傳輸速率更長(zhǎng)的距離，給系統(tǒng)設(shè)計(jì)者顯著的優(yōu)勢(shì)。智能電表只需要每天發(fā)送少量數(shù)據(jù)，因此數(shù)據(jù)速率很低。這允許使用更長(zhǎng)的距離，與諸如ZigBee這樣的協(xié)議在2.4 GHz時(shí)可以攜帶更多數(shù)據(jù)是非常不同的。使用子1 GHz頻帶也避免了來(lái)自2.4 GHz源的潛在干擾，例如Wi-Fi、藍(lán)牙和微波爐，這進(jìn)一步降低了建立可靠無(wú)線鏈路所需的功率。

　　The latest RF chips from Texas Instruments have been demonstrated to carry low rates of data （a few kbyte/s） over distances of up to 10 km at these lower frequencies. This has two advantages： more devices can be connected to a single hub or concentrator， or the power consumption of the RF transceiver can be reduced dramatically. This allows the system architect to optimize the balance of power consumption and reach. For example， several streets of houses could be connected via a sub-1 GHz link to a concentrator in the street， avoiding the need for broadband hubs in every home.

　　Modules support different wireless network topologies such as point-to-point， point-to-multipoint， peer-to-peer， and mesh networks depending on the system architecture. Mesh networks allow neighboring units to link together and carry data， greatly extending the reach. This hits the data rate， but for a smart meter network， the reach is far more important to saving costs than the data rate and there is plenty of headroom to support mesh networking.