Universal Meter Reading & Common Doc. No.

001
Format

Version 3.0
th
Table Of Contents Date 26 Aug 10
Page 5 of 113

1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose
The intention of this document is to provide possible way forward by the metering companies so that
utilities can use common IT infrastructure to gather information from meters of all manufacturers. This
initiative should help the utilities to protect their investments in reading and billing infrastructure for
meters of all types. In order to achieve this goal this document provides specification of software
which can be used for acquiring meter data of different manufacturer & to provide data in common
format for further processing of meter data.

The specification fulfils following objectives.

• To provide Common framework (CFW) for software & to specify interfaces so that
modules can be attached with it. It is envisaged that the common software will have minimum
functionality attached which is described below.
o To provide module (API) for reading meter.
o To provide module (API) for exporting data in common format so that 3rd party
software which is using the data for further processing will have uniform way of
handling the data irrespective of the manufacturer from which the meter is bought.
o To provide module (API) for checking integrity of the data.
• The common framework will ensure that
o Future expandability is easy to accommodate technically & administratively
o Backward compatibility for existing meter base
o Scalability of the software
o Accommodating different utility
o Simplicity of ‘maintenance’
o Security of the data

1.2 Scope
The computer system operates on different hardware & operating system. For the purpose of
simplicity PC hardware & Microsoft Windows operating system is used as operating platform. The
common framework software will operate on this platform & meter manufacturer will provide APIs for
this platform. It has been believed that meter manufacturer specific software will continue to operate.
The software written from this specification will simplify utilities every day work but there will still be
few technical operations left out for which manufacturer software will be used.
It has been assumed that the target application is to collect meter data from a fixed network on need
basis. The specification evolved here does not address on line data collection application or does not
address SCADA application. Since different meter continue to operate in it’s own way different makes
of meter will not be connected on the same connection point. Similarly meters can not operate with
different baudrate on the same network.
The common frame work software and API are not expected to reside on MRI. MRIs will continue to
operate as it is operating today whereby different manufacturer’s software co-exists on a common
MRI. For transferring data from MRI to CFW or vice versa API 2 is required at CFW end.
This document does not specify that all meters will supply the same information. This document only
suggests that the same parameter is represented in the uniform way.
It is expected that each manufacturer will supply APIs as per the latest released version of the MIOS-
UMRCF specification. Each API will only comply to the respective manufacturer’s meters. The user of
the APIs (e.g. utility / System Integrator) will have to make their own arrangement for developing
software complying to Common framework specification (CFW).

Public File Name: MIOS Universal Meter Reading common format V3.0