Texas Instruments Corporation

Vincent Wei Chit Chan

Stephen James Underwood

Volker Rzehak

Thomas Hung Lam Kot

A poly-phase electric energy meter comprises a front-end that converts analog current input signals and analog voltage input signals to digital current and voltage samples and a micro-controller for computing power consumed. The front end includes first and second input channels. Each input channel has a multiplexer, an analog-digital converter, a de-multiplexer and a set of data registers. The first input channel receives current input and the second input channel receives voltage inputs. A multiplexer control causes the first and second channels to sequentially sample the current and voltage for one phase at a time and store digital data in corresponding data registers. The micro-controller computes energy consumed from the simultaneous current and voltage samples.

Poly-phase electric energy meter

An auto-ranging electricity meter circuit having multiple current signal paths. Each of the current signal paths are amplified by a different amount of gain, and then applied to an ADC. The ADC then converts each of the amplified signals at different gains in a continuous process. The system analyzes the different sets of samples to determine which is the most accurate to use. Advantages include improved accuracy of an electricity meter using a lower cost A/D converter.

Growing community of inventors

Hong Kong, China

Vincent Wei Chit Chan