Paper No. T.12-4.2, pp.

1-4

The 6th PSU-UNS International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICET-2013), Novi Sad, Serbia, May 15-17, 2013 University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences

UTILIZATION OF THE EFA-300 FOR CONTINUOUS MONITORING IN SEMONT INFORMATION NETWORK

Miodrag Milutinov1*, NikolaDjuric1, Dragisa Miskovic1
University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Novi Sad, Serbia *Authors to correspondence should be addressed via email: miodragm@uns.ac.rs
1

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present a possibility of utilization of a handheld EFA-300 instrument for low frequency electromagnetic filed measurements as a part of the Serbian monitoring network SEMONT. The SEMONT system is designed as wireless monitoring system, consisting of spatially distributed sensors, for longterm and continuous broadband monitoring of electromagnetic fields in environment. The sensors measurement results are automatically and remotely collected by wireless communication network, populating a centralized database of the SEMONT Internet portal. This paper presents the measurement characteristic of the EFA-300 suitable for monitoring and a software interface solution achieving integration of the EFA-300 instrument into the SEMONT monitoring network. Key Words: Electromagnetic field / Monitoring / Power lines / Substations / Wireless network. 1 INTRODUCTION Due to growing number of various parts of the electric power system (transmission/distribution lines, distribution transformers, etc.), which are placed in residential area, the general public is continuously exposed to socalled man-made electric and magnetic fields. A large volume of research and analysis on the question of possible health effects related to electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure has been generated, representing the accumulation of many hours of laboratory work, epidemiologic analyses, and human experiences with EMF. The effects of EMF of a variety of sources had been studied in biological systems for a long period of time. A significant number of studies reported a statistical connection between the extreme low frequency (ELF) EMF that is stemmed from power lines and childhood cancers, in particular residential neighborhoods [1]-[4]. Such facts had resulted in calling for continuous informing of public about their exposure to EMF radiation. The appeal of the municipal Agency for Non-ionizing Radiation Protection [5], had encouraged development of the Serbian EMF monitoring system SEMONT [6]-[7]. The proposed measurement system is basically designed

for continuous monitoring of EMF in the high frequency range, but with minor modification could be extend to cover EMF generated by power system elements [8]. The SEMONT system consists of the multiband sensors [9], which are to be spatially distributed for remote and long-term, 24 hours a day, broadband monitoring of the high frequency EMF. The sensor nodes are equipped with measurement unit for measurement of total electric field in the range from 100 kHz to 7 GHz and wireless communication unit. The proposed system is based on GSM network that serves to connect remote sensors and to collect measurement results, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Basic concept of information network. Measurement results from all sensors are collected and stored into centralized database and could be accessed through the Internet web portal of the SEMONT system [10], as it is illustrated in Fig. 2. The SEMONT was planned to cover the high frequency EMF, measuring the total electric field; and it was initially design for one specific type of commercially available sensors, explained in [9]. The number of sensors which system could manage is unlimited. However their high price on market forces the team of SEMONT designers to investigate the alternative solution. The idea was to extend the capability of the system to use sensors or measurement unit that are made by different manufacturer and to utilizes them for continuous measurement of total electric or magnetic field. For this purpose specific software interfaces (parsers) have been designed, in order to provide incorporation of measurement results, no matter of type of sensors.

The magnetic field probe with high sensitivity and a large cross-sectional area (100 cm2), is used for standardized measurement of dissimilar magnetic fields in range from 4 nT to 32 mT. Furthermore, EFA-300 has electric field probe for measuring electric fields in range from 0.7 V/m to 100 kV/m. Both field probes perform simultaneous three-axis measurements, as shown in Fig. 5, obtaining the resultant magnetic/electric field independently of the tri-axial orthogonal arrangement.

Fig. 2. SEMONT Internet portal. The system performs graphical presentation of average and maximum value of total electric field over specific period of time, as it could be seen in Fig. 3.

Fig. 5. Isotropic response. Isotropic measurement avoids sensor manual rotation and therefore also the presence of technical personnel on the sites. 2.1 Operating modes The EFA-300 instrument operates in several different modes. For continues monitoring application, required in the SEMONT system, it is suitable the Field strength mode (FSM). In this mode instrument performs measurement of RMS or peak value within a selected frequency range. The RMS value of the magnetic flux den through is calculated from the RMS values B sity B x for the magnetic flux densities in the three measureB y ment axes.

B 2 +B 2 +B 2 B= x y z
Fig. 3. Example of the measurements presentation. The SEMONT system was designed for continuous monitoring of EMF in high frequency range, but also for the low frequency monitoring, where it can cover EMF generated by power system elements [8]. This paper considers utilization of the handheld EFA300 instrument [11] for EMF measurement into the SEMONT system. The idea is to incorporate the measurement results obtained by EFA-300 into SEMONT database. The goal is to combine the advantage of measurement characteristics of EFA-300 and an approach of the SEMONT internet presentation of results of EMF monitoring. 2 EFA-300 FIELD ANALIZER The EFA-300 is field analyzers for measuring magnetic and electric fields in the workplace and over public spaces. EFA-300 performs measurements in the low frequency range, from 5 Hz to 32 kHz, using isotropic field probes [11]. Basic unit, magnetic and electric field probe are shown in Fig. 4.

(1)

The RMS value is independent of the time-domain phases of the three field components. The RMS value for the electric field strength calculates similarly. is calThe peak value of the magnetic flux density B culated from the variation in time of Bx(t) through Bz(t) of the magnetic flux densities in the three measurement axes.

= Max B

{ B (t) + B (t) + B (t)}

2 x 2 y 2 z

(2)

The peak value is dependent on the phase alignment of the measured field component. This fact is taken into account in the vectorial addition of the components [11]. The EFA-300 instrument in FSM mode support several frequency range classes: Broad band, Band pass and Band stop. To use EFA-300 as part of monitoring system it is suitable a Broad band class, which means measurement of all the signal components that are within a frequency range 5 Hz to 32 kHz. Figure 6 illustrates the display results in FSM mode and measuring the peak current value of the magnetic flux densities in broadband frequency range.

Fig. 4. EFA-300 measurement system.

Fig. 6. Illustration of display results for broadband field strength measurements in freq. range 5Hz to 32kHz.

A frequency measurement is additionally performed in this mode (50 Hz in Fig. 6.). This frequency measurement is based on counting the number of zero crossings of the signal and is therefore basically suitable for measurements of fields with one dominant frequency. 2.2 Data storage The EFA-300 instrument is supported with software that provides PC controlled measurement mode and data readout. Timer-controlled storage of data allows you to record the measured values over a defined time period and time step in Field Strength mode. Timer-controlled measurements generally run over a longer time interval and therefore it is important to ensure power supply for the recording period. The total number of measured values that could be recorded is 4095 [11]. There are two ways to record the measured values. By defining a time period for saving data: The precise start and stop times for the measurement are entered. Immediate start: The measurement is started immediately and runs until the data memory is full (max. 24 hours). The instrument switches off automatically as soon as the final measured value has been saved. 2.3 Exporting data The measurements data can be downloaded to the PC for further processing. Stored measured values can be saved in a *.txt or *.csv file and exported. This means that file could be process with other programs (e.g. a spreadsheet). Figure 7 shows the form of exported file in txt format. There are date and time interval and step of measurement, detection mode (RMS or Peak), values and frequency of dominant field component.

and parsing measurement data by specially developed software and the last step is data upload to the SEMONT centralized database for further graphical presentation in SEMONT internet portal. It is planned that parsing would be performed on the SEMONT Internet portal side, freeing up the instrument side of additional software. Once the measurement data are transferred from EFA-300 to the PC it is enough to upload the *.txt file to the SEMONT database, where parser performs all necessary tasks. The concept of transmitting data from instrument to the SEMONT internet portal is depicted in Figure 8.

Fig. 8. Concept of utilization of EFA-300 into the SEMONT system. Uploading data to the SEMONT internet portal is performed trough administration part by licensed person. The parser is realized so the licensed person after log in to the SEMONT database browse the *.txt or *.csv file. Parser automatically transfers the data in appropriate form to the database. From the uploaded file, the parser can extract date and time set of measurement values. The GUI for uploading data to the data base is shown in Figure 9.

Fig. 7. ASCII data file with measurement result in FSM mode with 5 sec time step. 3 APPLICATION The goal of the SEMONT development team was to utilize a handheld EFA-300 instrument for low frequency electromagnetic filed measurements as a part of the Serbian monitoring network SEMONT. This means to incorporate measurement results obtained by EFA-300 into the SEMONT database. 3.1 Parsing data The incorporation implies several tasks. First of all the measurement results from EFA 300 should be transferred locally to the PC which is enabled trough an optical cable by the EFA-300 itself. Next step is managing Fig. 9. Uploading data to the SEMONT data base. In a practice, using this addition the EFA-300 could serve like the SEMONT sensor element. This utilization brings benefits on both sides. The EFA-300 instrument could present measurement results in new graphical form accessible over the Internet portal. Beside measurement values the end users could see information about measurement location, basic information about the measuring device, frequency range, as described in [12], [13]. On the other side, implementation of parser to the SEMONT database will expand the number of compatible instruments which could be used as sensors nodes.

The SEMONT system is developed to present a RMS or peak value in time. Further research will be oriented in expanding of graphical presentation of SEMONT internet portal which will enable to present more types of the measurement results obtained by EFA-300, such as spectrum or harmonic content of the fundamental frequency of magnetic or electric field. 3.2 Remote control The EFA-300 has ability to be remote control by PC over optical cable. The set of instruction could set up the time interval and time step, start the measurement, save the data into the instrument internal memory and export saved data to the PC. This mean that is possible to develop the additional software located in the PC for supporting wireless communication with SEMONT control center. This software will take the instruction from the control center and send data to the SEMONT database. The final goal is to place handheld instrument on the site where together with PC will serve as wireless measurement node, as illustrated in Figure 10.

system. On the other side results obtained from EFA-300 measuring device could be present on Internet through already developed SEMONT Internet portal that beside measurement result could provide additional information such as geographical location of measurement. Development of software located on PC, connected to the measuring device, which will enable wireless remote control and data collection is part of further research. 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological development of the Republic of Serbia, under the grant for the project TR 32055. 6 REFERENCES
[1] N. Wertheimer and E. Leeper, Electrical wiring configurations and childhood cancer, Am. J. of Epidemiology, 1979, Vol. 109, No. 3, pp. 273 284. [2] N. Bianchi, and group of authors, Overhead electricity power lines and childhood leukaemia: a registry-based, case-control study, Tumori, 2000, vol. 86, no. 3, pp. 195-198. [3] W. Bailey, Health effects relevant to the setting of EMF exposure limits, Health Phys., 2002, vol. 83, no. 3, pp. 376-386. [4] S. Borjanovic, S. Jankovic and Z. Pejovic, ECG Changes in Humans Exposed to 50 Hz Magnetic Fields, J. Occup. Health, 2005, vol. 47, pp. 391-396. [5] Municipal agency for the environmental protection city of Novi Sad, http://www.environovisad.org.rs. [6] N. Djuric, M. Prsa, K. Kasas-Lazetic, Serbian system for remote monitoring of electromagnetic fields, Acta Electrotehnica, 2011, Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on modern Power Systems, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, pp 140-142. [7] N. Djuric, M. Prsa, K. Kasas-Lazetic, V. Bajovic, Information network for EMF monitoring in power systems 16th Internat. Symp. Ee2011, Novi Sad, Serbia, October 26-28, 2011, paper No T6-1.1, pp. 1-5. [8] M. Milutinov, N. Djuric, B. Vukobratovic, Sensor network for power lines magnetic field monitoring, 16th Internat. Symp. Ee2011, Novi Sad, Serbia, October 26-28, 2011, Paper no. T6-1.5, pp 1-5. [9] M. Milutinov, N. Djuric, D. Miskovic, D. Knezevic, Area monitor sensor for broadband electromagnetic environmental pollution monitoring, XLVI International Scientific Conference on Information, Communication and Energy Systems and Technologies ICEST 2011, Nis, Serbia, Jun 29 - July 1 2011, Vol. 1, pp 217-220. [10] N. Djuric, N. Kavecan, Internet Portal of the SEMONT Information Network for the EM Field Monitoring, 4th International Conference on Advances in Future Internet AFIN 2012, Rome, Italy, Avg 19-24, 2012, pp. 55-59. [11] Narda Safety Test Solutions GmbH, EFA-200/-300 EM Field Analyzer Operating Manual, 2245/98.22, 2006, http://www.narda-sts.de/home.htm [12] N. Djuric and N. Kavecan, Internet portal of the SEMONT information network for the EM field monitoring, The Fourth International Conference on Ad-vances in Future Internet AFIN 2012, Rome, Italy, August 19 24, pp. 55-59, 2012. [13] N. Djuric, N. Kavecan and D. Kljajic, The EM field register of the SEMONT Broadband monitoring net-work, IEEE 10th Jubilee International Symposium on Intelligent Systems and Informatics SISY 2012, Subotica, Serbia, September 20-22, pp. 27-30, 2012

Fig. 10. Concept of further research on making EFA-300 as wireless controlled SEMONT sensor. The communication and data transfer will be relied on GSM network. 4 CONCLUSION The SEMONT information network is designed for long-term monitoring of EMF in environment. The system uses a number of sensors to measure and automatically and wirelessly upload results to database. The SEMONT system is capable to fully incorporate the handheld instruments and to presents their results of measurement to the public, in a real-time manner. In this paper is described the utilization of handheld instrument EFA-300. It is explained how it is possible to export results obtained from EFA-300 to the SEMONT internet portal for graphical presentation. For this purpose one of the several measuring mode of the EFA-300 was particular suitable. This utilization brings benefits on both sides. Due to the high price of existing wireless sensors and in order of cost-effectiveness of the measurements, it is desirable to incorporate any other measuring device into SEMONT