A practical microwatt-meter for electrical energy measurement in programmable devices. (November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Al-Shorman, Mohammad Y; Al-Kofahi, Majd M; Al-Kofahi, Osameh M
• Is Part Of: Measurement and control. Volume 51:Number 9/10(2018)
• Page Start: 383
• Page End: 395
• Publication Date: 2018-11
• Subjects: Power aware -- energy consumption -- microcontrollers -- programmable; Automatic control -- Periodicals; Engineering instruments -- Periodicals; Production engineering -- Periodicals; 629.8
• DOI: 10.1177/0020294018794350
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0020-2940

Abstract

Background: In this work, an accurate low-cost power microwatt-meter is designed, built, and tested. This microwatt-meter is found to be capable of measuring power consumption in a wide range of devices and sensors, such as nodes in wireless sensor networks, microcontrollers in Internet of Things devices, and Field Programmable Gate Arrays. Methods: The paper examines the usage of the microwatt-meter for the measurement of power consumption in digital devices as they execute program instructions, ranging from a low-level single step (instruction) in an assembly program to a high-level sophisticated program or system. Results: The results obtained showed that the microwatt-meter is highly accurate. It can measure the energy consumed by any of the devices/programs/instructions in a digital system with accuracy levels ranging between 0.5% and 2.5% (depending on the application). Conclusion: The accuracy of the microwatt-meter is validated using the fundamental conservation of energy law and a comparison with multimeter current measurements is presented.