Wireless meter detection system based on BLE

Abstract

The invention discloses a wireless meter detection system based on BLE. The wireless meter detection system comprises a core electric energy meter, at least two host electric energy meters and at least three slave electric energy meters. A BLE communication module with a double-role capability is integrated in the core electric energy meter, and the core electric energy meter can serve as a master device to be connected with a plurality of slave electric energy meters and serve as a slave device to establish connection with a plurality of host electric energy meters, so that a multi-link parallel communication structure of'master-slave 'is formed. The host electric energy meter finds the core electric energy meter through scanning, establishes uplink connection and sends a meter detection instruction to the core electric energy meter; the core electric energy meter analyzes the instruction and transmits the instruction to the corresponding slave electric energy meter according to the target address; the slave electric energy meter collects electric energy data and then transmits the electric energy data back to the host electric energy meter through the core electric energy meter. The system adopts a GAP / GATT event mechanism to realize processing of broadcasting, scanning, connection and service communication, and completes instruction analysis and data forwarding through serial port interruption. According to the system, wireless cooperative meter detection and data centralized management among multiple electric energy meters can be realized.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of electricity metering and Internet of Things (IoT) communication technology, and more specifically, to a BLE-based wireless meter reading system. Background Technology

[0002] With the development of smart power systems, the number of electricity meter data acquisition terminals is constantly increasing, and the on-site installation environment is becoming increasingly complex. Traditional electricity meters often use RS485 or wired bus methods for data exchange. While these methods are simple in structure, they have significant limitations in practical use. On the one hand, relying on series communication links formed by physical lines, signal attenuation is significant when the line distance is long or the number of nodes is large, reducing anti-interference capabilities and easily causing communication interruptions, bit errors, and packet loss. On the other hand, the reliability of traditional series topologies is greatly affected by the quality of nodes; a failure in any node can paralyze the entire communication link, significantly reducing the system's scalability, maintainability, and fault tolerance. Furthermore, on-site wiring often needs to pass through walls, cable trays, or narrow spaces, resulting in a large overall construction workload, high maintenance costs, and poor deployment flexibility.

[0003] To address these issues, some systems have begun exploring wireless communication technologies to replace wired connections. However, in low-power wireless scenarios, most traditional wireless solutions have limited communication range, and most employ point-to-point or point-to-multipoint structures. When the network topology is complex or the number of terminals is large, issues such as connection instability, node conflicts, and data congestion can easily arise, making it difficult to meet the demands of multi-meter, long-distance, and multi-node parallel communication. In energy meter centralized data collection systems, especially in scenarios requiring simultaneous data acquisition, task distribution, and status monitoring of multiple energy meters, existing wireless solutions often struggle to simultaneously meet the requirements of high reliability, high-concurrency communication, and low-power operation.

[0004] Meanwhile, the rapid development of IoT and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies has provided new ideas for wireless communication in electricity meters. BLE boasts advantages such as low power consumption, low latency, fast device discovery, rapid connection establishment, and low hardware cost. Its broadcast mechanism, connection mechanism, and GATT data interaction model are all suitable for short-range, high-frequency communication scenarios. However, most existing BLE applications are based on simple one-to-one or one-master-multiple-slave communication structures, which often cannot meet the business requirements of simultaneously connecting multiple masters and multiple slaves in multi-meter collaborative reading scenarios, making it difficult to achieve synchronous acquisition of multi-source data and multi-meter cascaded communication.

[0005] Given the shortcomings of the aforementioned solutions, there is an urgent need for a BLE-based wireless meter reading system to address these issues. Summary of the Invention

[0006] The purpose of this invention is to solve the technical problems mentioned in the background section and to provide a BLE-based wireless meter reading system, comprising: A core energy meter, and at least two master energy meters and at least three slave energy meters that communicate wirelessly with the core energy meter; The core energy meter integrates a low-power Bluetooth BLE communication module, and both the master energy meter and the slave energy meter integrate BLE modules compatible with the BLE communication module. The core energy meter is configured to act as both a slave device of the master energy meter and a master device of the slave energy meter. At the same time, it can establish uplink connections with two master energy meters and downlink connections with three slave energy meters, thereby forming a "master-slave" many-to-many communication topology, realizing wireless meter detection data forwarding and sharing between master energy meters and between master energy meters and slave energy meters.

[0007] As a preferred technical solution of the present invention, the core energy meter includes an energy metering unit, a main control processing unit, and a BLE communication module electrically connected to the main control processing unit; The main control processing unit and the BLE communication module communicate via UART1 serial port, using serial data frames as the basic unit to exchange check data and configuration commands.

[0008] As a preferred technical solution of the present invention, the host energy meter is configured as a master device with active scanning and connection capabilities. Its BLE module works in the role of the master device and is used to periodically initiate scanning, discover nearby core energy meters and initiate connection requests to them, issue meter inspection instructions, and receive electricity consumption data returned by the core energy meters. The slave energy meter is configured as a slave device with the ability to be connected and respond. Its BLE module works in the role of a slave device, used to accept connection requests initiated by the core energy meter, receive meter inspection tasks, and transmit locally collected energy data back.

[0009] As a preferred technical solution of the present invention, the core energy meter is equipped with a transparent communication mechanism module for transparently forwarding data between the master energy meter and the slave energy meter. The transparent communication mechanism module is configured to, upon receiving any serial data frame uploaded through an established BLE connection, forward the data frame to another corresponding BLE connection without changing the data content, based on the target device address or connection index contained in the data frame, thereby realizing real-time cascaded communication between the master energy meter and the slave energy meter.

[0010] As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the BLE communication module has a built-in BLE protocol stack event handling module, the event handling module comprising: The GAP event processing unit is used to handle access control related events. The GATT event handling unit is used to handle events related to attribute protocols and service communication. And multiple event callback functions connected to the GAP event processing unit and the GATT event processing unit respectively, used to trigger the pre-registered processing flow when the corresponding event occurs.

[0011] As a preferred technical solution of the present invention, the GAP event processing unit is configured to divide the received GAP events into at least one of broadcast events, scan events, connection events, and encryption and pairing events; For broadcast events, call the broadcast event callback function to set or update broadcast parameters and broadcast data; For scan events, call the scan event callback function to process the scan results of external devices and select the device to connect to; For connection events, call the connection event callback function to complete connection establishment, connection parameter update, and connection disconnection handling; For encryption and pairing events, call the encryption and pairing event callback function to complete key negotiation, pairing information saving, and security level setting.

[0012] As a preferred technical solution of the present invention, the GATT event processing unit is configured to call the service communication event callback function when service communication events such as service discovery, feature reading, feature writing, or notification and indication are detected, so as to complete the reading and writing of the energy meter data feature values, the reporting of the energy meter operating status, and the remote parameter configuration.

[0013] As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, it further includes an interrupt handling module for handling serial communication between the energy meter and the BLE module, wherein the interrupt handling module is configured as follows: When a UART1 interrupt is detected, the data in the serial port receive buffer is read and frame synchronization and verification are performed. If the received data frame is found to be complete, the command word in the data frame is parsed. If the command word is a transparent data instruction, the corresponding connection index and connection role are found according to the address information in the data frame. When the target is identified as a host energy meter, the data is forwarded to the corresponding host energy meter; when the target is identified as a slave energy meter, the data is forwarded to the corresponding slave energy meter.

[0014] As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, when the interrupt handling module determines that the command word is a configuration control instruction, it performs a corresponding operation according to a pre-stored Realtek instruction set, and the operation includes at least one of the following: This function allows you to set or read device pairing parameters, device address, device Bluetooth operating parameters, host Bluetooth connection information, actively disconnect the host connection, switch to slave connection mode, set or read link data reception mode, set or read upload message format information, set device firmware version information, set device custom flags, enable or disable broadcast function, enable or disable scanning function, set target device address parameters for broadcast filtering, set device type parameters for broadcast filtering, set broadcast flag bits, set or read broadcast data, set broadcast receive data processing mode, set or read extended reporting parameters, read real-time link quality or channel information, read or set device serial number, enable or disable Bluetooth authorization, and set or read the main link wireless channel timeout.

[0015] This invention also provides a BLE-based wireless table detection method, comprising the following steps: Initiate a scan on the host energy meter side and discover the core energy meter. Establish a BLE uplink connection with the core energy meter based on the scan results. The core energy meter establishes a BLE downlink connection with at least three slave energy meters according to the "master-slave" connection logic; The master energy meter sends a meter check command to the core energy meter through the uplink connection, and the core energy meter transmits the meter check command to the corresponding slave energy meter. The slave energy meters collect local energy metering data according to the received meter inspection command and transmit it back to the core energy meter. The core energy meter aggregates the data from multiple slave energy meters and performs necessary format conversions before transmitting it back to at least one master energy meter via an uplink connection, thus completing the wireless meter inspection operation of multiple meters.

[0016] Compared with existing technologies, this invention has the following advantages: By introducing a BLE communication mechanism into the core energy meter that can simultaneously assume the roles of master and slave devices, this invention constructs a "master-slave" multi-connection topology, enabling the system to stably complete multi-meter collaborative reading without relying on a traditional wired bus. This dual-role, multi-link wireless structure effectively avoids common problems in traditional RS485 serial communication, such as link interruptions, node cascading failures, and complex wiring, resulting in higher reliability and flexibility in installation, maintenance, and expansion.

[0017] Leveraging the low-power characteristics of BLE, the core energy meter can simultaneously maintain connections with multiple master energy meters and multiple slave energy meters, reducing overall energy consumption while ensuring real-time and continuous communication. Even if any link fails, the others remain stable, ensuring uninterrupted data exchange efficiency and significantly improving overall communication fault tolerance.

[0018] Regarding data forwarding, the transparent pass-through mechanism proposed in this invention can automatically select the corresponding connection index and link direction based on the target address, enabling direct relay transmission of data between the master and slave devices without modification. This mechanism not only reduces intermediate processing steps and improves communication speed, but also ensures the original interaction of data content between different devices, avoiding data alteration, omission, or inconsistent formatting. Simultaneously, the core energy meter centrally manages and uniformly transmits data from multiple slave devices, enabling the master energy meter to acquire data from multiple slave meters in a single communication cycle, thus improving meter reading efficiency.

[0019] In terms of event handling, this invention utilizes the GAP and GATT event framework based on the BLE protocol stack. Through event callback functions, it hierarchically manages processes such as broadcasting, scanning, connection establishment, encrypted pairing, and service communication, ensuring rapid system response in critical processes like device discovery, connection establishment, data exchange, and parameter configuration. This event-driven design enables the system to remain agile and stable even in complex environments, and allows for dynamic adjustment of connection parameters and operating modes based on business needs during operation.

[0020] Furthermore, the serial port interrupt handling mechanism of this invention enables real-time parsing and response to data exchange between the BLE module and the main control MCU, maintaining high consistency and accuracy in operations such as instruction cascading, transparent forwarding, and device parameter settings. Coupled with a rich set of configuration instructions, the system can flexibly adjust Bluetooth operating modes, broadcast filtering strategies, link timeout parameters, and service feature formats during field deployment, easily adapting to different field arrangements and business needs. This mechanism also further reduces the cost of system debugging and maintenance, allowing for upgrades or expansions without significant modifications to the hardware structure.

[0021] In summary, this invention not only achieves wireless, multi-node, and highly reliable data acquisition and communication, but also features low power consumption, easy configuration, and easy expansion. It can effectively solve the pain points of traditional wired meter inspection methods, such as poor reliability, complex wiring, and inconvenient maintenance, and provides a wireless meter inspection solution with engineering feasibility and practical application value for large-scale power metering terminals. Attached Figure Description

[0022] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention or the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present invention. For those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without creative effort.

[0023] Figure 1This is a schematic diagram of the overall communication topology of the BLE-based wireless meter reading system of the present invention, showing a "master-slave" multi-link architecture formed by the core energy meter simultaneously establishing connections with multiple master energy meters and multiple slave energy meters.

[0024] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the event processing flow of the BLE protocol stack inside the core energy meter of this invention, showing the classification of GAP events and GATT events and the triggering method of their corresponding callback functions.

[0025] Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of the serial port interrupt handling mechanism of the core energy meter of the present invention, showing the process of frame synchronization, verification, command parsing and transparent forwarding after UART1 receives a data frame. Detailed Implementation

[0026] To make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of this invention clearer, the following description is provided in conjunction with embodiments and appendices. Figures 1-3 The present invention will be further described in detail below. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.

[0027] This specific embodiment, in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, provides a detailed description of the structural composition, workflow, and device interaction logic of a BLE-based wireless meter reading system, so that those skilled in the art can understand the implementation of the present invention.

[0028] In practical applications, the wireless meter reading system of this invention comprises a core energy meter, at least two master energy meters, and at least three slave energy meters forming an overall communication network. The core energy meter integrates a BLE low-power Bluetooth module, simultaneously functioning as both a master and slave device. It can establish uplink connections with multiple master energy meters and maintain downlink connections with multiple slave energy meters at the same time, placing the core energy meter in a "master-slave" communication node position. Figure 1 As shown, the master energy meter, as a BLE master device, has scanning and active connection capabilities; the slave energy meter, as a BLE slave device, is responsible for responding to passive connections, receiving tasks, and performing meter checking actions.

[0029] During system operation, the host energy meter periodically initiates a BLE scan to search for nearby device information in the broadcast channel. The core energy meter, as the scanned device, periodically broadcasts its device name, MAC address, and broadcast content, allowing the host energy meter to quickly identify its presence. Once the host energy meter discovers the core energy meter during the scan callback, it initiates a connection request to the core energy meter and establishes a stable BLE uplink.

[0030] Once the connection is established, the master energy meter can send meter reading commands to the core energy meter, such as reading electricity consumption, instantaneous voltage, instantaneous power, and historical data. The core energy meter is responsible for receiving the meter reading commands from the master energy meter, parsing them into internal serial port commands, and then sending the commands to the corresponding slave energy meter through a pass-through mechanism based on the target address and connection index.

[0031] Simultaneously, the core energy meter also acts as a BLE master device, proactively initiating connections to pre-paired or registered slave energy meters, establishing three BLE downlink connections on the slave device side. After a successful connection, the core energy meter can store and maintain information such as the index number, connection role, connection status, and target slave address for each connection in real time. This information will be used for subsequent transparent data routing, command issuance, data feedback, and device management. Through this structure of coexisting uplink and downlink, the core energy meter can act as a "data hub" between the master and slave devices, enabling many-to-many data synchronization and command interaction.

[0032] Regarding communication protocols, this invention employs the BLE-built-in GAP (General Access Control Protocol) and GATT (General Attribute Protocol) event mechanisms, such as... Figure 2 As shown, the BLE module in the core energy meter continuously generates various events during operation, such as broadcast events, scan events, connection events, encrypted pairing events, service discovery events, and feature read / write events. Each event immediately triggers a pre-registered event callback function. For example, when a connection event occurs, the connection event callback handles actions such as connection establishment, parameter updates, connection maintenance, and connection termination; when a GATT-related event occurs, the service communication event callback executes feature value reading, feature value writing, and triggering of notification or indication callbacks, ensuring the BLE data channel always operates stably. The existence of this event mechanism guarantees the real-time responsiveness of the overall system communication status.

[0033] Inside the core energy meter, the BLE module communicates with the main control MCU via a UART1 serial port. The serial port interrupt handling mechanism is as follows: Figure 3 As shown. During system operation, a serial port interrupt is triggered whenever UART1 detects incoming data. The interrupt service routine first reads the contents of the serial port buffer to determine if the frame is complete and if the checksum is correct. If the data frame is incomplete, it waits for the next interrupt to continue reading. If the frame is complete, the interrupt handler further determines whether the frame contains a valid command word and distinguishes different processing logic based on the command word type.

[0034] When an interrupt resolves a data frame to be a transparent transmission command, it queries the system's connection table based on the target device address carried within the frame to find the target connection's index and role. If the target device is a slave, the core energy meter sends the transparent transmission data to that slave energy meter via the corresponding BLE downlink; if the target is a master energy meter, the data is sent back to the corresponding master via the BLE uplink. This transparent forwarding method, which does not alter the frame content, enables real-time data flow between the master and slave. For example, a meter check command issued by the master is forwarded unchanged to the target slave, and the energy meter data returned by the slave is also transmitted back to the master without loss.

[0035] In addition to transparent transmission commands, the interrupt handling of this invention also supports a large number of configuration commands, enabling flexible configuration of the BLE module. These include, but are not limited to, device pairing parameter settings, device address modification, Bluetooth operating parameter adjustment, host connection information reading, active disconnection, switching slave mode, broadcast parameter updates, scanning filtering policy settings, firmware version query, extended reporting format settings, link quality reading, channel information analysis, Bluetooth licensing function switching, and link timeout parameter settings. When the interrupt program recognizes such configuration commands, it will call the internally preset Realtek command set to complete the relevant operations, giving the system high configurability and strong field adaptability.

[0036] Throughout the meter reading process, the master energy meter is typically used for centralized management and data display, issuing commands to the core energy meter via BLE. The core energy meter is responsible for unified scheduling, transparent forwarding, and data aggregation. The slave energy meters act as the execution end, completing the actual measurement and uploading. Taking a complete meter reading operation as an example: the master energy meter sends a command to the core energy meter to read energy data. The core energy meter parses the target slave address corresponding to the command and then forwards the command to the target slave. Upon receiving the command, the target slave immediately reads the energy data from its local metering unit and sends the data back to the core energy meter via BLE feature notification. After receiving energy data from multiple slaves, the core energy meter automatically classifies and merges the data according to its source, and then sends the processed data to the master energy meter via the BLE uplink channel. The master energy meter ultimately presents the data to the user, achieving large-scale clustered wireless meter reading.

[0037] Through the above structure and process, the system of this invention can maintain stable communication in complex power environments, avoiding the inherent defects of traditional centralized RS485 serial structures such as long wiring distances, unstable nodes, and insufficient scalability. Relying on BLE wireless technology and a "master-slave" topology, this system makes multi-meter collaborative meter checking more efficient, secure, and with good real-time performance.

[0038] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present invention, and not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative effort are within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A BLE-based wireless meter reading system, characterized in that, include: A core energy meter, and at least two master energy meters and at least three slave energy meters that communicate wirelessly with the core energy meter; The core energy meter integrates a low-power Bluetooth BLE communication module, and both the master energy meter and the slave energy meter integrate BLE modules compatible with the BLE communication module. The core energy meter is configured to act as both a slave device of the master energy meter and a master device of the slave energy meter. At the same time, it can establish uplink connections with two master energy meters and downlink connections with three slave energy meters, thereby forming a "master-slave" many-to-many communication topology, realizing wireless meter detection data forwarding and sharing between master energy meters and between master energy meters and slave energy meters.

2. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The core energy meter includes an energy metering unit, a main control processing unit, and a BLE communication module electrically connected to the main control processing unit. The main control processing unit and the BLE communication module communicate via UART1 serial port, using serial data frames as the basic unit to exchange check data and configuration commands.

3. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The host energy meter is configured as a master device with active scanning and connection capabilities. Its BLE module works in the role of the master device and is used to periodically initiate scanning, discover nearby core energy meters and initiate connection requests to them, issue meter inspection instructions, and receive electricity consumption data returned by the core energy meters. The slave energy meter is configured as a slave device with the ability to be connected and respond. Its BLE module works in the role of a slave device, used to accept connection requests initiated by the core energy meter, receive meter inspection tasks, and transmit locally collected energy data back.

4. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The core energy meter is equipped with a transparent communication mechanism module, which is used to transparently forward data between the master energy meter and the slave energy meter. The transparent communication mechanism module is configured to, upon receiving any serial data frame uploaded through an established BLE connection, forward the data frame to another corresponding BLE connection without changing the data content, based on the target device address or connection index contained in the data frame, thereby realizing real-time cascaded communication between the master energy meter and the slave energy meter.

5. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that, The BLE communication module has a built-in BLE protocol stack event handling module, which includes: The GAP event processing unit is used to handle access control related events. The GATT event handling unit is used to handle events related to attribute protocols and service communication. And multiple event callback functions connected to the GAP event processing unit and the GATT event processing unit respectively, used to trigger the pre-registered processing flow when the corresponding event occurs.

6. The system according to claim 5, characterized in that, The GAP event processing unit is configured to classify received GAP events into at least one of broadcast events, scan events, connection events, and encryption and pairing events; For broadcast events, call the broadcast event callback function to set or update broadcast parameters and broadcast data; For scan events, call the scan event callback function to process the scan results of external devices and select the device to connect to; For connection events, call the connection event callback function to complete connection establishment, connection parameter update, and connection disconnection handling; For encryption and pairing events, call the encryption and pairing event callback function to complete key negotiation, pairing information saving, and security level setting.

7. The system according to claim 5, characterized in that, The GATT event handling unit is configured to call the service communication event callback function when it detects service communication events such as service discovery, feature reading, feature writing, or notification and indication, to complete the reading and writing of the energy meter data feature values, the reporting of the energy meter's operating status, and the configuration of remote parameters.

8. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that, It also includes an interrupt handling module for handling serial communication between the energy meter and the BLE module, the interrupt handling module being configured to: When a UART1 interrupt is detected, the data in the serial port receive buffer is read and frame synchronization and verification are performed. If the received data frame is found to be complete, the command word in the data frame is parsed. If the command word is a transparent data instruction, the corresponding connection index and connection role are found according to the address information in the data frame. When the target is identified as a host energy meter, the data is forwarded to the corresponding host energy meter; when the target is identified as a slave energy meter, the data is forwarded to the corresponding slave energy meter.

9. The system according to claim 8, characterized in that, When the interrupt handling module determines that the command word is a configuration control instruction, it performs a corresponding operation based on a pre-stored set of Realtek instructions. The operation includes at least one of the following: This function allows you to set or read device pairing parameters, device address, device Bluetooth operating parameters, host Bluetooth connection information, actively disconnect the host connection, switch to slave connection mode, set or read link data reception mode, set or read upload message format information, set device firmware version information, set device custom flags, enable or disable broadcast function, enable or disable scanning function, set target device address parameters for broadcast filtering, set device type parameters for broadcast filtering, set broadcast flag bits, set or read broadcast data, set broadcast receive data processing mode, set or read extended reporting parameters, read real-time link quality or channel information, read or set device serial number, enable or disable Bluetooth authorization, and set or read the main link wireless channel timeout.

10. A wireless meter detection method based on BLE, characterized in that, Applied to the system according to any one of claims 1-9, comprising: Initiate a scan on the host energy meter side and discover the core energy meter. Establish a BLE uplink connection with the core energy meter based on the scan results. The core energy meter establishes a BLE downlink connection with at least three slave energy meters according to the "master-slave" connection logic; The master energy meter sends a meter check command to the core energy meter through the uplink connection, and the core energy meter transmits the meter check command to the corresponding slave energy meter. The slave energy meters collect local energy metering data according to the received meter inspection command and transmit it back to the core energy meter. The core energy meter aggregates the data from multiple slave energy meters and performs necessary format conversions before transmitting it back to at least one master energy meter via an uplink connection, thus completing the wireless meter inspection operation of multiple meters.

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