CLEAR — A circuit level electric appliance radar for the electric cabinet

In this paper, we propose a cost-effective hardware design for acquiring high-resolution energy data from electricity mains to observe appliance switching transients. By utilizing these distinct appliance switching transients, we are interested to predict all appliances operating in a building and also estimate their power consumption. The proposed design fulfills the data acquisition requirements for effective appliance identification from aggregate load signals. Due to its unique and customizable features, the circuit level electric appliance radar (CLEAR) is capable of operating in multiple environments (residential, commercial, and industrial). CLEAR can simultaneously measure voltage and current data streams from a three-phase system at up to 250 kHz to accurately pinpoint individual appliance switching. The first prototype is installed in an office building to collect office level aggregate data. With this aggregate data, the main challenge lies in detecting and isolating similar appliance switching events from switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) utilized by most office appliances such as laptops, LCDs, and printers.