Real-time power monitoring using field-programmable gate array with IoT technology

Automation technologies are often impacted undesirably by downtime caused by machine failures. An approach to overcome machine failures is through failures prediction, achievable via the monitoring of power consumption. Unusual power consumption could serve as an alert for possible machines faults. Real-time power consumption monitoring is made possible with the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT), which brings together digital cloud computing and conventional automation technology to rapidly increase the efficiency of production. In this work, the authors have developed an IoT-based power monitoring system to detect unusual power consumption of machines and present the data to users remotely through Android application and cloud storage. The competent integration of Wi-Fi module ESP8266, CT sensor module and field-programmable gate array DE1-SoC board allows the system to accurately measure power consumption and instantaneously store the data in cloud storage. Performance of the developed system was characterised by current measurement of five different loads. The absolute errors, given by the difference between current measured by digital multimeter and the developed system, range from 0.01 to 0.26 A. The close agreement between the two measurements endorses the accuracy and reliability of the real-time power monitoring system, on top of its easy-accessibility gifted by IoT.