Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Kenji Kuniyoshi

Shinji Yamamoto

Mitsuru Tanabe

Takayuki Sasaki

Mitsuru Maeda

Yasuko Yamamoto

Masaki Koyama

Hiroji Kobayashi

Takehiro Matsuda

Hiroji Hatano

Kaoru Mukai

Tomoaki Mizuta

Tomohide Furuya

The slave is used in an energy management system for collecting meter-reading data from an energy meter for measuring an amount of electric energy supplied from a power source to a predetermined place through a distribution line. The slave includes: a first interface unit configured to communicate with an upper device; a second interface unit configured to communicate with an electric appliance installed in the predetermined place; and a third interface unit configured to perform first wireless communication using an electric wave with a communication terminal. One of the first interface unit and the second interface unit is a wired communication unit configured to perform power line communication using the distribution line, and the other of the first interface unit and the second interface unit is a wireless communication unit configured to perform second wireless communication using an electric wave.

Slave suitable for energy management systems and energy management system

A splitter includes, in parallel between trunk terminals and branch terminals, a signal branching circuit that blocks distributed power and passes a PLC communication signal and a power branching circuit that blocks the communication signal and passes the distributed power. In the signal branching circuit, impedance viewed from the branch terminal side is matched with characteristic impedance of a power line and impedance viewed from the trunk terminal side is higher than impedance viewed from the branch terminal side, in the frequency band of the communication signal. In the power branching circuit, input/output impedance is set to be sufficiently higher than the impedance of the signal branching circuit viewed from the trunk terminal side, in the frequency band of the communication signal.

Splitter

A power line communications system includes slave apparatuses individually connected to multiple electric power line wirings; a master apparatus connected to one of the multiple electric power line wirings; and couplers each connected between the master apparatus and the others of the multiple electric power line wirings. The master apparatus includes a communicator for performing power line communications with the slave apparatuses via the electric power lines; a power supply terminal device connected to the one electric power line wiring; a communication connector provided between the communicator and the power supply terminal device; and a coupler connecting terminal device connected to each of the couplers via a signal line. The communication connector has a first capacitor connected to the power supply terminal device for cutting off a frequency component of commercial power supply and transmitting a frequency component for use in the power line communications, and a first transformer connected between the first capacitor and the communicator. The coupler connecting terminal device is connected between the first capacitor and the first transformer.

Power line communications system

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Kenji Kuniyoshi