Real-Time Monitoring of Power Line Data Using Wireless Sensor Network and PowerExcel Software

Real-time monitoring of power line data using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is one of the important and challenging tasks in the field of the electrical power system. In this work, a sensor board MDA 300CA is used which is made by Crossbow Technology. This is actually a data acquisition board. A driver software named as MoteView is used for collecting the raw data from different sensor nodes. Separate multiuser ‘PowerExcel’ software has been developed. This software works as an interface to view the data received from the driver software. Different power line transducers, which are connected with different sensor nodes, are used for measurement of power line data, viz., system phase voltages, load currents, connected active and reactive loads, and its power factor. A user-friendly GUI has been developed for easy and live monitoring of data using MATLAB. These data are also being stored in the .csv format for future reference. A provision for audio and visual safety alert is also available, when any of the data crosses its prespecified limit.