ENHANCING POWER QUALITY MONITORING USING WIRELESS

APPLICATION PROTOCOL ENABLED MOBILE DEVICES

N. Rathina Prabha1, N. S. Marimuthu2 and S. Amirtharaj3
1

Assistant Professor, Dept. of EEE, Mepco Schlenk Engineering College, Sivakasi 626005, India
2
Principal, National Engineering College, Kovilpatti 628503, India
3
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Computer Applications, Mepco Schlenk Engineering College, Sivakasi 626005, India
E-mail: 1nrpeee@mepcoeng.ac.in and 3amrit@mepcoeng.ac.in

Abstract
This paper presents a method of representing the IEEE Power Quality Data Interchange Format (PQDIF) in Wireless
Markup Language and use of mobile Computing for enhancing Power Quality Monitoring. IEEE PQDIF is a binary file
format specified in IEEE Std. 1159.3-2002 that is used to exchange power quality measurements between software
applications. Extensible Markup language is a commonly used text-based format for exchanging data through the Internet.
Wireless Markup Language is an Extensible Markup Language application for marking up documents to be delivered to
handheld devices. As Power Quality Monitoring becomes more prevalent, the need to support the development of mobile
computing applications to distribute, display and analyze power quality data using high-level, platform independent
software tools becomes more acute.
Keywords: power quality monitoring, wireless application protocol, extensible markup language, wireless markup
language
1.

INTRODUCTION
Power Quality (PQ) is becoming prevalent and of critical
importance for power industry recently. The fast expansion
in use of power electronics devices led to a wide diffusion
of nonlinear, time-variant loads in the power distribution
network, which cause massive serious PQ problems. At the
same time, the wide use of accurate electronic devices
requires extremely high quality power supplies. Therefore,
the research of PQ issues has captured exponentially
increasing attention in the power engineering community in
the past decade.
During the last ten years, the benefits of adequate asset
management have become increasingly clear in the power
industry due to the economic pressures and aging
infrastructure. An apparent tool to improve the assetmanagement strategies is the implementation of
information technology systems that support the operational
processes. A Broadband Wide-Area Network as an Enabler
of Improved Power System Maintenance is proposed in [1].
Diverse power quality monitoring (PQM) instruments
have been employed in the collection of power quality
measurements from many monitoring points in
transmission, distribution and end-user systems. The
purpose of monitoring is varied and accordingly so does the
data structures of these measurements. The IEEE Std.
1159.3-2002 PQDIF binary file format [2] provides a
compact, flexible, extensible means to exchange these
diverse measurements between software applications.
However, for applications where the ease of data
manipulation is more important than file size, an alternate

easily-parsed, human readable, text based representation of

PQDIF is highly desirable.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) [3] is a metalanguage that describes the content of the document (selfdescribing data). XML is a better alternative to proprietary
data formats and media for data interchange. The methods
to be used when representing a PQDIF file in XML, a
popular file format that meets these requirements is
proposed in [4]. An attempt to develop a new PQ XML
markup language for facilitating the exchange of PQ data
was made in [5]. An automatic power quality monitoring
system based on an integrated Discrete Wavelet Transform
and Fast Fourier Transform approach using an adaptive
neuro-fuzzy inference system based classifier to implement
the approach is proposed in [6]. Design and realization of a
regional PQM system adopting the standard of PQDIF as
the PQ data norm, expert system to analyse the status of
regional PQ and the communication way of GPRS to
transmit data is proposed in [7].
Mobile Computing has revolutionised the way in which
we work, connect and communicate to the world. It offers
mobility with computing power and facilitates a large
number of applications on a single device. Today, there is a
plethora of mobile devices available, besides mobile phones,
which perform numerous complex functions. With the
availability of diverse and wide range of Wireless
Application Protocol (WAP) [8] enabled mobile wireless
devices available with all stakeholders involved in PQM,
the use of XML in wired Internet/Intranet and Wireless
Markup Language (WML) [9] in mobile wireless
Internet/Intranet for exchange of PQ measurements
between software applications and consequently developing

applications to distribute, display and analyse power quality

data using high level, platform independent software tools
become more imperative.
The purpose of this paper is to present new opportunities
that appear when developments in the areas of power
system communications and PQM are studied in
conjunction. The IEEE PQDIF representation using WML
helps all stakeholders to receive the necessary details from
the PQ monitors, immediately in their mobile devices, in
spite of their mobility, thereby enabling faster restoration of
the power system from disturbances. The main focus here
is to elucidate the implications with the WAP as an enabler
for enhanced PQM.
2. OVERVIEW OF IEEE 1159.3-2002 PQDIF FORMAT
PQDIF achieves its flexibility by segregating the
definition of its physical structure from that of its logical
structure. The physical structure defines how basic and
complex data types are constructed in a file. The logical
structure defines how the physical data is interpreted as
power quality data.
2.1 Physical Structure
PQDIF employs a relatively simple, hierarchical physical
structure. At the highest level, a file consists of one or
more records:
Record 1
Record 2
Record 3

Record N
Each record is composed of a collection of elements. All
elements are one of three types: a scalar (single value), a
vector (series of values), or a collection of elements.
Record
Collection 1
Scalar 1
Scalar 2
Vector 1
Vector 2
Collection 2
Scalar 3
Scalar 4
Collection 3
Scalar 5
Scalar 6
Scalar and vector element values are of one of fixed set
of types. The complete list of types is illustrated in Table 1.
Complex data elements are created using collections of
elements. Since a collection can contain nested collections,
any level of complexity can be obtained without the need to
add new intrinsic data types. This is the mechanism that
PQDIF uses to achieve flexibility while avoiding the need
for constant revision.

This simple set of rules defines the physical structure of

all PQDIF files. Once an application implements them it
can parse any present or future PQDIF file.
TABLE 1: INTRINSIC PQDIF DATA TYPES
Name
BOOL1
BOOL2
BOOL4
CHAR1
CHAR2
INT1
INT2
INT4
UINT1
UINT2
UINT4
REAL4
REAL6
COMPLEX8
COMPLEX16
DT
GUID

Description
1 byte Boolean
2 byte Boolean
4 byte Boolean
ASCII character
Unicode character
1 byte integer
2 byte integer
4 byte integer
1 byte unsigned integer
2 byte unsigned integer
4 byte unsigned integer
4 byte real
8 byte real
Complex 4 byte real pair
Complex 8 byte real pair
Time stamp with microsecond resolution
16 byte globally unique identifier

2.2 Logical Structure

The logical structure defines the rules for how records
and record elements are organized to represent power
quality data. The low-level details of these records are
beyond the scope of this paper. However, understanding of
the high level details of the logical structure is necessary in
order to appreciate the organization of the XML/WML
representation of a PQDIF file. The essential concepts that
must be understood are tags and ids, channels and record
types.
2.2.2
Tags and Ids
Tags and ids are the foundation of the logical structure of
PQDIF. Every PQDIF element has a tag that identifies the
meaning of the element. For example, the primary
collection of each record has a tag identifying the record
type. Ids are the range of values that a tag may have. The
PQDIF specification defines a standard set of tags and for
each tag, its associated element type, its place in the
element hierarchy of a record and its range of id values.
Each tag value is implemented using a globally unique
identifier (GUID). The id values can be optionally
implemented as GUID or integer values as appropriate.
Since a unique GUID can be generated without consulting a
central authority, a PQDIF application can create private
tags, only understood by that application. Since all PQDIF
applications are required to ignore elements with tags that
they do not understand, these private tags have no effect on
other applications that parse the PQDIF file.
This
mechanism ensures that new tags can be added to the
PQDIF standard without breaking existing applications.
GUID based tag and id values are an essential part of
extensible nature of PQDIF.

2.2.2 Channels
A channel represents one of a set of data streams that are
generated by a monitor. Each channel should have unique
quantity (e.g., rms voltage) and phase (e.g., phase A-N)
information.
Channels are created for both real
measurements (e.g., rms voltage and rms current) and
derived measurements (e.g., voltage total harmonic
distortion, Pst).
2.2.3 Data Source Records
Data source records contain collections of definitions for
the channels of a monitor. These channel definition
collections contain elements that identify the quantity,
phase, units, etc. of a channel. The values contained in a
channel definition do not change over time. Many
observation records share a single data source record. This
avoids replicating definition information in each
observation record.
2.2.4 Monitor Settings Records
Like data source records, monitor settings records
contain collections that are referenced by the channel
instance collections of many observation records. Rather
than defining the unchanging values of a channel definition,
channel settings collections contain elements to store
information about the parameters that are in effect when a
measurement is captured.
For example, a channels trigger threshold might be
recorded in a settings record. Monitor settings records avoid
the need to replicate channel definition values when a
settings change is made either by an operator or
automatically by the monitor.
2.2.5 Observations Records
Observation records contain the actual measured values.
Each observation record contains one or more channel
instance collections. These collections reference channel
definition collections and channel settings collections in the
associated data source and monitor settings records
respectively. Each channel collection typically contains a
vector of time values and one or more vectors of the
channel quantity values.
For example, separate vectors could be used for average,
minimum, and maximum values. Data source, monitor
settings, and observation records are associated by their
order in a PQDIF file. The data source record must precede
the monitor settings and observation records that reference
it. Similarly, a monitor settings record must precede the
observation records that reference it.
3. REPRESENTING PQDIF FILES IN XML
XML is a simple markup language for documents that
contain structured information. It is a standard, selfdescribing way of encoding both text and data. A primary
purpose of XML is to allow content to be exchanged across
a wide range of hardware, software, and operating systems.
XML was originally developed as a tool in large-scale
electronic publishing. However, it is now playing an

increasingly important role in the exchange of data via the

World Wide Web. In XML the tags are generally used to
define the structure and content of data.
In XML the appearance of the data is specified by the
application that is displaying the file or by an associated
style sheet file. XML is extensible. In other words, tags are
defined by applications for specific purposes.
The
hierarchical, tag-based, extensible structure of XML is a
good match for the structure of PQDIF. The task of
defining an XML representation of PQDIF is essentially
that of defining the XML representation of the PQDIF
physical structure. The logical structure of XML
representation is identical to that of the binary PQDIF file.
XML elements are of the following form:
<tag p1="v1" p2="v2" p3="v3">value</tag>
where tag is the elements tag name, p1, p2, p3,
etc. are optional properties of the element, v1, v2, v3,
etc. are the respective property values, and value is the
value of the element, which can in fact be a collection of
XML elements.
The PQDIF specification defines names for tags and ids.
For consistency and readability, XML representation uses
these names for tag and values respectively. Alternately, a
generic GUID and integer encoding, which is used for
private tags and ids, could be used for all as well.
PQDIF collection elements map as simple XML
elements with no properties. The value of a collection is the
set of elements contained in the collection. For example:
<tagRecObservation>

</tagRecObservation>
This example denotes an observation record. The
elements of the record would be included between the
opening and closing tags.
Scalar elements have a type and single value. For many
applications the type implied by the value encoding is
sufficient. For example 1 is an integer; 1.2 is a real value,
2003-12-31 is a date, etc. Further, for many elements, their
tags imply the data type. However, the physical type is
useful in determining the optimal decoding method for data
and so is included as an attribute. The abbreviated type
names shown in Table I are used for readability. For
example:
<tagChannelDefnIdx
type="UINT4">1</tagChannelDefnIdx>
Vector elements are similar to scalar elements but add a
size to denote the number of data values in the vector. The
individual data values are separated with commas. This
format significantly reduces the size of the XML file
compared with a XML item list scheme. Comma separated

data is also well supported by many software tools.

typical vector might appear as:

<tagSeriesValues type="REAL4" Size="89">

296.4,296.4,296.9,297, ,288.7</tagSeriesValues>
For storage efficiency and readability, vectors of characters
are encoded as text strings. For example:
<tagObservationName
type="CHAR1" Size="6">Trend</tagObservationName>
4.

REPRESENTING PQDIF IN WML

The exchange of power quality information between
monitoring instruments and analysis software programs is
hindered by the diverse incompatibilities between them.
This paper seeks to overcome this data exchange problem
and speed up the receipt of power quality information by
the stakeholders involved, through their WAP enabled
mobile devices, by way of WML representation of IEEE
PQDIF and consequently enhancing performance and
efficiency of the power quality monitoring system.

4.1 Motivation for using Mobile Devices

The system wide PQM requires an infrastructure that is
distributed around a power network. Typically power
quality is monitored at the substation as well as at suitably
enabled revenue meters. Data is transmitted to a central
database through telephone, the Internet or via a
distribution automation system. Data generated by the
PQM equipments has to be transformed into knowledge
usable for decision making.
Online PQ assessment involves analysis of data as they
are captured. The analysis results from automated PQMs
have to be available quickly for immediate dissemination.
Such online data analysis can provide real time response to
notify the respective site supervisors. The supervisors can
act immediately upon receiving the message. For example,
when there is a fault on the distribution circuit, the
automated PQM system can reveal the cause and location
immediately to the handheld mobile devices of the crew on
the site.
4.2 Wireless Application Protocol
WAP is an application environment and set of
communication protocols for wireless devices designed to
enable manufacturer, vendor and technology independent
access to the Internet-Intranet and advanced telephony
services. WAP bridges the gap between the mobile world
and the Internet as well as corporate intranets and offers the
ability to deliver an unlimited range of mobile value-added
services to users; independent of their network, bearer and
terminal. Mobile users can access the same wealth of
information from a pocket-sized device as they can from
the desktop.
The push framework included in WAP defines Push
Initiators, which would be implemented by the push content
providers and Push Proxy Gateways (PPG), which are

responsible for delivering the pushed content to the WAP

client. There is also a Push Access Protocol, which is how
the Push Initiator communicates to the PPG and a Push
Over-The-Air protocol for communicating between PPGs
and WAP devices. In the wireless web, WAP enabled
mobile devices are capable of receiving messages and web
content. Servers can push content to mobile devices. The
mobile devices can ring or vibrate, attracting the attention
of the engineer or supervisor to see the information pushed
to the device.
4.3 Wireless Application Environment
WAP also defines a wireless application environment
aimed at enabling operators, manufacturers and content
developers to develop advanced differentiated services and
applications including a microbrowser, scripting facilities,
e-mail, world wide web-to-mobile handset messaging and
mobile-to-telefax access.
4.4 Wireless Markup Language
The role of WML in mobile Internet/Intranet
applications is the same as that of HTML in web
applications. WAP sites are written in WML. WML
supports client-side scripting. The scripting language
supported is called WMLScript. WAP compatible handsets
contain a microbrowser that will serve to interpret the byte
code generated from the WML/WMLScript and display
interactive content to the user. Information will be
available in push-and-pull functionality, with the ability for
users to interact with services via both voice and data
interfaces.
4.5 XML to WML Conversion
XML is the language used for describing data.
Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is a style sheet
language for XML documents. With the advent of WAP,
web sites developers are increasingly deploying their sites
in XML and using the transformation engine of XSL, which
is XSL Transformations (XSLT), to tailor their web pages
to different browsers. Developing applications that can
dynamically adapt to different browsers is possible.
It is not possible for the present day WAP devices (client
side) to convert the XML data into WML data. The
conversion has to be done on the server side, by a web
server, like IIS. WAP 2.0 enabled mobile devices can
display both XHTML MP and WML documents. XSLT
can be used to transform data in XML format into other
formats like WML, XHTML, etc.
The steps involved in transforming XML to WML using
the Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technology and
the Document Object Model (DOM) are

Create an instance of the DOM object

Let it run synchronously
Load the XML document
Load the XSLT stylesheet
Set the MIME type
Send the WML prologue
Perform the transformation

An example stylesheet for performing the XML to WML

conversion is given below:
<%
Set
xml=Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument")
xml.async = false
xml.load (Server.MapPath("PQdata.xml"))
Set xsl=Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument")
xsl.async = false
xsl.load (Server.MapPath("WML.xsl"))
Response.ContentType = "text/vnd.wap.wml"
Response.Write <?xml version='1.0'?>
Response.Write "<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "
"-//WAPFORUM//DTD " & _"WML 1.1//EN""
""http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml""
>"
Response.write (xml.transformNode(xsl))
%>

Fig. 1: PQM using WAP Enabled Mobile Devices

A sample screen illustrating PQM using a WAP enabled

mobile device is illustrated in Figure 1.
5. CONCLUSION
Online PQ assessment involves analysis of data as they
are captured. The analysis results from automated Power
Quality Monitors have to be available quickly for

immediate dissemination. Such online data analysis can

provide real time response to notify the respective site
supervisors. The exchange of power quality information
between monitoring instruments and analysis software
programs is hindered by the diverse incompatibilities
between them. This paper seeks to overcome this data
exchange problem and speed up the receipt of power
quality information by the stakeholders involved, through
their WAP enabled mobile devices, by way of WML
representation of IEEE PQDIF and consequently enhancing
performance and efficiency of the power quality monitoring
system.
REFERENCES
[1] Lars Nordstrom and Goran N. Ericsson, A Broadband
Wide-Area Network as an Enabler of Improved Power
System Maintenance, IEEE Transactions on Power
Delivery, Vol. 21, No. 1, Jan. 2006.
[2] IEEE P1159.3 Draft 8, The Recommended Practice for
the Transfer of Power Quality Data, February 2002.
[3] Frank P. Coyle, XML, Web Services and the Data
Revolution, Pearson Education, 2007.
[4] William W. Dabbs and Daniel Sabin, Employing
Extensible Markup Language (XML) in IEEE Std
1159.3-2002 PQDIF, in Proceedings of IEEE Power
Engineering Society Transmission and Distribution
Conference & Exhibition, pp. 370-375, 21-24 May 2006.
[5] S. Chen and X. L. Wang, Power Quality XML Markup
Language for Enhancing the Sharing of Power Quality
Data, in Proceedings of Power Engineering Society
General Meeting, Vol. 3, pp. 1565-1570, 2003.
[6] H. K. Siu and T. S. Chung, Design of an Automatic
Power Quality Monitoring System using Integrated
Approach, International Journal of Electrical and
Power Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 443-454, 2007.
[7] Chanxia Zhu, Minqiang Hu, Xiabo Dou, Shanglin and
Zhao, Design and Realization of Regional Power
Quality Monitoring System, IEEE International
Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation and
Restructuring and Power Technologies, pp. 2023-2027,
6-9 April 2008.
[8] Charles Arehart, ET. al., Professional WAP, Wrox
Press, 2000.
[9] Kris Jamsa, WML and WML Script A Beginners
Guide, McGraw Hill, 2001.

N. Rathina Prabha received her

B.E. (EEE) and M.E. (Power
System Engg.) degrees from
Thiagarajar College of Engg.,
Madurai, India. She is presently
working as an Assistant Professor
in the EEE Department of Mepco
Schlenk Engineering College,
Sivakasi, India. Her areas of
interest include Power Quality &
Power System Control.

N. S. Marimuthu received his

B.E. and M.Sc. (Engg.) degrees
from Annamalai University,
Chidambaram, India.
He
received his Ph.D. degree from
I.I.T. Kharagpur, India, in 1988.
He is presently Principal,
National Engineering College,
Kovilpatti, India. His areas of
interest include Power System
Dynamics & Power Electronics.

S. Amirtharaj received his B.E.

(ECE) degree from Bharathidasan
University, India and M.E. (CSE)
degree from Anna University,
Chennai, India. Presently, he is an
Assistant Professor in the PG
Department
of
Computer
Applications at Mepco Schlenk
Engineering College, Sivakasi,
India.
His areas of interest
include Communication Networks.