Low-Cost Real-Time Monitoring of a Laboratory Scale Power System

The ability of monitoring a laboratory scale power system is crucial for research and educational purposes. This paper proposes the development of a low-cost real-time platform for monitoring a laboratory scale power system. The design and development of this novel monitoring system is based on a TMS320F28335 microcontroller of Texas Instruments. The microcontroller reads voltage and current measurements from several locations of the laboratory scale power system, processes these measurements and then sends the results to a personal computer. The user can monitor in real-time the operation of the power system through the implemented graphical user interface. The developed system can achieve an accurate and real-time monitoring of a laboratory scale power system which is particularly useful in the educational process for understanding the main power engineering practices. Moreover, novel algorithms regarding the stability, the state estimation, the operation and the monitoring of power systems can be experimentally validated by utilizing the proposed monitoring system. The demonstration of the proper operation of the prototype monitoring system is available online as a video.