Building a Smart
Energy Gateway Solution
Application Note
Overview
Energy Gateways are an important piece of equipment for
Home Automation. Energy Gateway products helps in
management of energy inside the Home by providing control
and configuration capabilities. Energy Gateways form the
heart of the HAN [Home Area Network] wherein it connects to
all other smart devices present inside the home and interacts
with them over standards based communication paths.
Design Considerations
In this section, we will look into some of points that need to be taken
in consideration while designing a Smart Energy Gateway. For
example, to interface and control Smart Meters, Energy Gateways
can utilize Short RF technologies such as Zigbee, DLMS or M-Bus
[in European Markets]. Integration and support for such standards
based communications helps us to design a good Smart Energy
Gateway product. Another important design criteria for the Smart
Energy Gateway is the support for User Interface which allows
access, monitoring and control of the devices connected over the
Home Area Network.
Energy Gateway and its eco-system
Energy Gateway Product
Smart Appliances
Water Meter
Temperature
Gas Meter
Lighting Control
Energy Meter
ae Nr eA twe om ro kH
Internet
Block Diagram of a Smart Energy Gateway
AM437x
WiLink 8.0WiFi/BT/Zigbee
Gas Meter
Water Meter
Water Motor
Washing Machine
Power Mgmt Chip
USB Host Port
USB Device Port
SD/MMC Card
Ethernet
DDR3
Display Panel
Touch
eMMC or NAND
Camera Port
The Energy Gateway should support a simple and clean User-
Interface through which end users can check exactly how much
energy they are currently consuming, how much will it cost them
and how to efficiently manage each smart device present inside
the home to manage the costs.
The Smart Energy Gateway should also provide some sort of
communications interface to external world i.e., external
Internet. This can happen over the Home Router or if the Router
functionality is built into the Energy Gateway, then it
communicates directly to the external world. This
communication interface can be used to exchange energy
related information with governing bodies or energy companies.
In the previous section, we explained the concept & the
important blocks of Energy Gateway. In this section, we will
provide an implementation approach of realizing an Energy
Gateway using the Am437x Product-On-Module from Mistral
Solutions
Basic Configuration of the AM437x PoM
AM437x PoM from Mistral is a small form factor, high
performance, low cost, ready-to-use Product on Module (PoM)
built around the powerful 800MHz/1GHz Sitara AM437x SoC
from Texas Instruments. The AM437x offers extensive
integration such as multi core PRU-ICSS, PowerVR SGX 3D
acceleration core, dual camera, QSPI-NOR, up to 256 Kb on-
chip memory, Dual ADC and an easily extendable architecture,
making it the perfect solution for quick product deployment while
leveraging the benefits of the powerful SoC.
Product Implementation Approach
Features
Hardware
800MHz/1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor with
multi-core PRU-ICSS
WiFi + BT module with Antenna
1 GB DDR3L, 4GB eMMC with Micro SD Card Slot
HDMI output support
USB & DC powered
PMIC to power processor, memory and other peripherals
Expansion headers
LCD, CAM, Ethernet, CAN, I2C, SPI, ADC,
PWM, McASP, MMC etc.
8/10-bit camera interface
One USB 2.0 OTG
One USB 2.O Host
2 x Gigabit Ethernet
Debug interface JTAG & UART support
Audio In/Out
+5V DC or USB powered
Dimension: 125mm X 85mm
Software
Linux 3.12 kernel
Board Support Package
Android Kitkat
Demo Applications
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
!
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
EX
PA
NS
ION
CO
NN
EC
TO
R
PoM Advantage
The AM437x PoM is ideally suited for building a Smart Energy
Gateway for Home Automation because:
PoM consists of a low-power ARM Cortex Processor to handle
all control and main user Interface
PoM provides support for Display Panels and HDMI Output for
small or large In-House Display Units, providing a GUI inter-
faces to end users to manage Home Devices
PoM integrates USB Host, Device and OTG Ports which can
be used for interfacing to various user input devices, as additi-
onal storage or any other USB based interface
PoM has multiple SDIO Interfaces through which we can plug
WiLink 8.0 product to provide Wifi /Zigbee /Bluetooth
connectivity in one single chip. The other SDIO ports can be
used to support Data storage
PoM supports dual ADC interfaces which can be used to
interface to any motor or Analog Front-End interfaces to collect
data from real-world sensors
PoM supports CAN Interface which can be utilized to talk to
CAN specific slave devices like gas meters, water meters etc.
PoM supports dual PRU Engines which can be programmed
to any specific use-case/requirement
PoM supports Camera interface which can be used for
monitoring purposes such as video door Phones, surveillance
cameras etc.
PoM supports the AM437x processor which has in-built
security enhancements through the Crypto Engine. This can
be used for secure transmission of Energy consumption
details to authorized agencies.
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
In addition to the Hardware advantages of designing the Energy
Gateway using the AM437x PoM, we will also explore the
advantages from a software perspective.
The AM437x PoM comes with the following software
functionalities:
Linux Kernel 3.12 with support for various peripherals like I2C,
GPIO, SPI, UART, SD/MMC, Ethernet, Display Sub-system,
Touch and USB Host.
Display sub-system drivers for implementing in-House
Display Units for the Energy Gateway Product
Support for WLAN and BLE Stack through the use of the
WiLink 8 software package
Support for ZigBee stack
User interfaces through Touch i.e., ADC or I2c or SPI based
Touch-Screen Controller
Support for connection to Home Gateway or external Internet
through Ethernet Port
Android framework to enable Application development for
control and monitoring of smart home devices.
The PoM is a ready-to-use low-cost, form factor board greatly
reduces the Development cycle for Energy Gateway kind of
products and helps the customers to go to markets faster.
Product developers can use the PoM to develop their application,
finalize the industrial design and get their product to market
faster. The AM437x PoM can be customized and optimized for
customers intending to take it to volume production.
Mistral’s Product Engineering Services (PES) team has the
expertise in designing and developing Home Automation
Solutions that allows every point of a smart home to be
connected and controlled from central and/or a remote location.
This may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating,
ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of
gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved
convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.
Mistral’s expertise in designing Home automation solutions
include:
Customized Product / Solution Architecture for
Main Control Module
Field Module
Remote Module
Design Consultation and Review
Hardware Design and Development
Display with Capacitive multi-touch
Zigbee or ZWave / WiFi interface
Sensors (Temperature, Humidity, Light)
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
!
!
!
:
:
!
!
!
Mistral s Home Automation Expertise
About Mistral
Mistral is a technology design and systems engineering company providing end-to-end solutions for product design
and application deployment. Mistral is focused in two business domains: Product Engineering Services and
Defense & Homeland Security. Mistral provides total solutions for a given requirement, which may include hardware
board design, embedded software development, FPGA design, systems integration and customized turnkey
solutions. Mistral's strategic partnerships with leading technology companies help provide customers with a
comprehensive package of end-to-end solutions.
Mistral's Product Engineering Services are delivered through a proven development process, designed for
embedded product development. Mistral's hardware and software team works together in a seamless manner
providing expert product designs covering board and FPGA Designs, BSP and Firmware developments, Embedded
Application developments, integration of 3rd party solutions, verification/validation, product prototyping, production
coordination and product sustenance services.w
ww
.mis
tral
solu
tions
.com
©Copyright 2014, Mistral Solutions Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. & ...Partners in Real Time are registered Trademarks and Logos of Mistral. All other
Trademarks and Tradenames are the property of the respective owners.
Mistral Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,No.60, 'Adarsh Regent', 100 Ft. Ring Road, Domlur Extension, Bangalore - 560 071 Tel: +91-80-3091-2600 Fax: +91-80-2535-6440 E-mail: [email protected]
Mistral Solutions Inc.,4633 Old Ironsides Drive Suite 410 Santa Clara, CA 95054 Tel: +1-408-705-2240Fax: +1-408-987-9665E-mail: [email protected]
Branch Offices:
INDIA
! Hyderabad! New Delhi
USA
! Dallas, Texas
:
!
!
!
Application Design and Development
HMI for Main control and remote module
Android/WinCE Application for Remote data and control
via mobile
Windows Application for Remote data and control
via PC
:
!
!
!
:
!
Software Design and Development
Android / Embedded Linux/ Windows Embedded
Firmware
Board Support Package and Device drivers
Sensor and third-party module integration
Product Certifications and Deployment
FCC, CE, UL certification.
