Development of Microcontroller-based Electric Power Distribution Automation System

The demand on the electric power for the household, commercial and industrial loads is on the increase. Also, the management of electric distribution system is becoming more complex. Lack of information at the base station on the status of the distribution network has been identified as the major bottleneck to its effective monitoring and control. This work is a development of Microcontroller-based Electric Distribution Automation system for the purpose of effective monitoring and control of distribution system. Designed components include Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) with Microcontroller(ATmega8A) as the major component for acquisition, monitoring, transmission and processing of data; Modulation and Demodulation (MODEM) module for serial data communication; Man–Machine interface(MMI) which is the Distribution Automation Software designed with Visual C-Sharp,2008 and it is residents on Personal Computer(PC). The modules circuits were built on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) whose design was custom-made using PCB Editor Software. To authenticate the functionality of the developed MODEM, high frequency signals at the extremes 50 kHz, 100 kHz, 200 kHz and 500 kHz, using 12volts signal source was impressed on MODEM. The responses shown on the Oscilloscope indicated that it is possible, using the developed system, to generate the high frequency signals necessary to establish communication between the distribution substation (DSS) modules. The next stage of this work is the implementation.