A multitude of supply meters (e.g. water, thermal quantity, and gas meters, as well as heat cost allocators) can be found in residential buildings, which must be read regularly.  Access to these meters is usually not possible without making an appointment between the owner of the building/lessee and the billing company. This is one of the reasons that systems for automatic meter reading (or "smart metering"), which are based on various radio systems, have increasingly established themselves in the past few years. These systems make it possible to detect and remotely transmit the meter readings of an apartment or property without the necessity of entering the premises and reading the meter on-site.

High network capacity

Digades has developed a solution ("digades Smart Metering Solutions") for setting up complex automatic meter reading systems. The high network capacity makes it possible to integrate up to 2,000 supply meters into one network.

Self-organizing and hierarchically structured radio network

The basis of the digades solution is a self-organizing radio network during commissioning and then a hierarchically structured radio network. The data of the supply meters are transmitted via radio to a data concentrator that is also battery-operated, which then transfers this to a master data concentrator in the radio network wirelessly. Here, all routing functions within the radio network run automatically. Up to 40 data concentrators can be integrated per radio network, which are organized in a hierarchic structure. Which data concentrator receives which supply meter depends upon the receptivity of the meter and is determined during the configuration of the network.

Simple installation

The entire network is initialized by the master data concentrator. Here all terminal devices (radio-supply meters) located in radio range are automatically detected by "wireless routing" and report to the master data concentrator. By transmitting the related ID-numbers and RSSI-values of the terminal devices, the master data concentrator organizes an optimum configuration of the network for data transport. The simple installation of the system components requires no special RF-knowledge on the part of the electrician.

Technical features (data concentrators / master data concentrator)

• Frequency band: 868MHz
• Type of modulation: GFSK
• Max. Data volume per network cycle: 19.5kB
• Power supply: Battery
• Operating temperature: typ. -20°C to +60°C

Supply meter requirements

• Frequency band: 868MHz
• Telegram structure: DIN EN 13757-4:2005 Mode T1 (Other telegrams possible)