WO2005079561A1 - Appareil portable conçu pour etre utilise avec un conducteur electrique - Google Patents

Appareil portable conçu pour etre utilise avec un conducteur electrique Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2005079561A1
WO2005079561A1 PCT/NZ2005/000030 NZ2005000030W WO2005079561A1 WO 2005079561 A1 WO2005079561 A1 WO 2005079561A1 NZ 2005000030 W NZ2005000030 W NZ 2005000030W WO 2005079561 A1 WO2005079561 A1 WO 2005079561A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
portable apparatus
assembly
fence
transmitter
previous
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/NZ2005/000030
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Richard Lloyd Johnston
Murray Donald Long
Original Assignee
Gallagher Group Limited
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Gallagher Group Limited filed Critical Gallagher Group Limited
Publication of WO2005079561A1 publication Critical patent/WO2005079561A1/fr

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G01—MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01R—MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES
    • G01R31/00—Arrangements for testing electric properties; Arrangements for locating electric faults; Arrangements for electrical testing characterised by what is being tested not provided for elsewhere
    • G01R31/08—Locating faults in cables, transmission lines, or networks
    • G01R31/088—Aspects of digital computing

Definitions

  • This invention relates to a portable apparatus for use with an electrical conductor.
  • the invention relates to a portable apparatus that can transmit and receive signals along a length of the electrical conductor and which can also measure electrical parameters of a pulse or signal present on the electrical conductor.
  • Electric fence systems are quite different from other electrical systems.
  • Electric fence systems generally consist of a large single network with literally kilometres of wire connected to a power source, which is generally in the form of an electric fence energiser.
  • This type of network can have multiple branches interconnected together. In contrast to other electrical systems (such as house wiring), there are few if any individual electrical circuits.
  • the wire is exposed to all types of adverse conditions, including weather, animals, machinery such as tractors, falling trees, intruders, and so forth.
  • a number of measurement devices have also been developed specifically for use with an electric fence system in order to monitor the pulse characteristics at various points along the fence system in order to assist in fault finding of the electric fence system and also to monitor the performance of the energiser to which the system is connected.
  • These composite devices have both pieces of equipment housed within one enclosure and have two fence connectors, one for each piece of equipment.
  • Another significant problem is that if both connectors are placed in contact with the conductor at the same time it would result in interference between the measurement circuit and the communication circuit and could lead to significant errors in any measurements that were taken due to the communications circuit loading down the fence measurements.
  • a portable apparatus for use with an electric fence, the portable apparatus including at least one measuring assembly that is configured to measure at least one operating parameter of an electric fence, and a transmitter assembly, and a fence contact device that is configured as a single contact terminal characterised in that the measuring and transmitter assemblies are electrically connected to the fence contact device.
  • a portable apparatus for use with an electric fence, the portable apparatus including, at least one measuring assembly that is configured to measure at least one operating parameter of an electric fence, and a transmitter assembly, and a receiver assembly, and a fence contact device that is configured as a single contact terminal characterised in that the measuring, transmitter and receiver assemblies are electrically connected to the fence contact device.
  • measuring assembly should be understood to mean any device, or combination of devices, for measuring and/or monitoring any of the operating parameters of an electric fence.
  • the signal is the pulse from an electric fence energiser.
  • the signal is a transmission from an ancillary device coupled to the electric fence, an example of which could be a remote transmitter.
  • transmitter assembly should be understood to mean an assembly that can transmit a signal to the fence contact device.
  • the transmitter assembly is capable of transmitting instructions or data to an electric fence energiser via the electric fence conductor when the fence contact device is brought into physical contact with the electric fence conductor.
  • the transmitter assembly can transmit data or instructions via the electric fence conductor to a remote device that has a receiver that is also in contact with the electric fence conductor.
  • the present invention may be adapted to find faults on electric fence systems.
  • the present invention may be adapted to control the operation of a device connected to the electric fence involved.
  • this facility may be used to assist measurements of fault finding on a large or complex electric fence system where a number of transceivers and/or measuring systems are being used.
  • receiver assembly used within the present specification should be understood to mean an assembly that is capable of receiving signals that are present on the electric fence contact device.
  • a receiver assembly may allow the present invention to be used in a bi-directional communication scheme to transmit communication signals to a remote location and also to receive communication signals from a remote location.
  • a receiver assembly may allow the present invention to be used in a bi-directional communication scheme to transmit communication signals to a remote location and also to receive communication signals from a remote location.
  • the present invention need not incorporate such a receiver assembly which should not be considered as essential to the implementation of the present invention.
  • the receiver assembly may be used to receive signals from an energiser via the electric fence conductor when the fence contact device is in electrical contact with the electric fence conductor.
  • the receiver assembly of the present invention may also receive signals from any transmitter that is connected to the same electric fence conductor.
  • a receiver assembly may be configured to receive instructions or data from any device connected to the electric fence line involved.
  • the transmitter and receiver can be constructed as a single assembly and can be referred to as such, eg a communications assembly.
  • the present invention uses a single fence contact device to connect all the assemblies to an electric fence or other conductor.
  • the fence contact device is configured as a conducting metal probe adapted to be placed in physical contact with an electric fence conductor.
  • the fence contact device may be configured in any way that allows a single point of electrical contact with an electrical fence conductor.
  • fence contact device should be understood to mean a single contact terminal for connecting the assemblies of the present invention to an electric fence conductor.
  • the portable apparatus is a handheld device that is brought into contact with an electric fence conductor in order to undertake at least one of the functions of the present invention.
  • the present invention may be left in contact with a conductor in order to facilitate the undertaking of a number of functions over a period of time.
  • An example of this might be to measure the pulse characteristics over a period in which vegetation has been removed from the proximity of the fence line.
  • the transmitter and/or receiver assemblies may have no or minimal loading effect on the measurement assembly, or the parameters measured by the measurement assembly.
  • the measuring assembly may have no or a minimal loading effect on the transmitter and/or receiver assemblies.
  • the measuring assembly may include a current measuring circuit.
  • the measuring assembly may include a voltage measuring circuit.
  • the measuring assembly may in most embodiments include both a voltage measuring circuit and a current measuring circuit.
  • the voltage measuring circuit includes a very high resistance voltage divider, and preferably the current measuring circuit includes an inductive coupling.
  • the high resistance of the voltage measuring circuit has no loading effect on the communication assembly and the inductive coupling of the current measuring circuit has a low coefficient of inductive coupling to the fence and therefore has a minimal loading effect on the communications assembly.
  • low voltage communication transmission signals may be transmitted by the transmitter assembly.
  • Low voltage transmission signals allows a single terminal (the fence contact device) to be used for both communications and measurement.
  • a low voltage communication assembly can operate independently of (and may also operate simultaneously with) the measuring circuit, (measuring voltage and current) and at the same time be isolated and protected from the high voltage energiser pulses so that the impedance of the communication assembly does not load and therefore affect the accuracy of the measuring circuit.
  • low voltage communications transmission and reception
  • the more difficult problem to be overcome is to have a communication assembly which does not affect the energiser pulse on the fence to which it is connected and therefore will not alter the characteristics of the pulse being measured.
  • the communication assembly must therefore present a high impedance to the fence pulse.
  • a capacitor may be placed in series between the transmitter and receiver assemblies and the fence contact device.
  • a capacitor placed in series with the communication assembly connection can provide the required high impedance for the energiser pulse ensuring that the transmitter or receiver assembly has no significant effect on the pulse characteristics.
  • the present invention is in the process of being connected to the fence during a pulse from the energiser it is possible to induce a fast transient into the communications circuit wherein the fast transient has been generated by the arcing of the pulse from the fence conductor over to the fence contact device of the present invention.
  • This fast transient has no significant effect on the pulse characteristics but can lead to a low energy/high voltage pulse being present on the communications input circuit.
  • This fast transient can pass through the capacitor and apply a potentially damaging high voltage to parts of the communications assembly.
  • This problem can be overcome by putting in a protection device.
  • a neon lamp (or lamps) is used to clamp the transient voltage to a level that does not damage any part of the communication assembly.
  • the neon lamp is considered suitable as the neon lamp has such a small capacitance (less than 1 pF) that it has no significant effect on the communications circuit.
  • a tuned frequency filter such as for example a high pass, low pass, or band pass filter or a resonant circuit
  • an energiser pulse transmitted along the fence line normally has most of its power between the 1 to 10 kHz frequency range. By filtering out this band of frequencies from the signal which the communications assembly is exposed to, damage to the communications assembly can be avoided.
  • a protection device may be formed by a high pass filter located in series between the communications assembly and its connection to an electric fence line.
  • the frequency of communication signals transmitted (and also preferably received via the communications assembly) may therefore be tuned to signals above those blocked by the filter.
  • the communication signal frequencies employed may be selected so as to present the communications assembly as a low impedance at communication frequencies and a high impedance at energiser or deterrent pulse frequencies.
  • the communications assembly of the present invention has preferably been designed for bi-directional communications on the fence system.
  • the present invention may not necessarily incorporate a receiver assembly and may therefore be employed in mono-directional communications if required.
  • Reference to bi-directional communications throughout this specification should in no way be seen as limiting, as should be appreciated by those skilled in the art.
  • this includes the transmission of data and control signals from the present invention to any other suitable devices connected to the fence, as well as receiving data from any of these or any other suitable devices connected to the fence.
  • the circuit For transmission of signals from the transmitter assembly the circuit has been designed to match the source of the impedance of the present invention to the low fence impedance as well as is possible within the limits of the pulse blocking capacitor. This allows for the most efficient transfer of the communications signal to the fence.
  • the circuit For received data the circuit has been designed to offer a high impedance so that the maximum signal voltage appears at the receiver assembly input.
  • the transmitter (and preferably receiver assemblies) may be tuned so as to transmit and receive communication signals between 20kHz and 50kHz.
  • This frequency band is low enough to prevent the fence line attenuating communication signals significantly and high enough to allow for relatively easy differentiation between communication signals and energiser pulses.
  • a protection device employed as discussed above consisting of a filter with a band pass region for the frequencies involved would prevent the communications assembly from attenuating the pulses of an energiser and therefore introducing errors into the measurements taken by the measurement assembly.
  • the transmitter and/or receiver assemblies will have no or minimal load on the operation of the measurement assembly.
  • communication signals with a frequency of approximately 40kHz may be transmitted by the transmitter assembly and also preferably received by a receiver assembly when integrated into the present invention.
  • the signaling method used is 'Continuous Phase' Frequency Shift Keying, as it is considered to be one of the most robust methods of transmitting and receiving data, even in relatively noisy environments. In such instances the transmitter may therefore transmit signals modulated by continuous phase frequency shift keying.
  • 'Continuous Phase' FSK was chosen as this method reduces the transmitted bandwidth by ensuring a smooth transition from one frequency to another.
  • Continuous Phase should be understood to mean ensuring that the frequencies chosen have an integral number of cycles for the Bit Period that is being used.
  • the centre frequency of the FSK signal has been chosen to be between 20kHz and 50kHz in order to provide a balance between the impedance and attenuation of the fence as well as the energiser transformer impedance.
  • An electric fence can be considered to be largely capacitive to AC signals and therefore the fence impedance will drop as the frequency increases, which can lead to greater signal attenuation.
  • the transformer is an inductance across the fence which therefore has an impedance which decreases with decreasing frequency.
  • Frequencies in the band between 20kHz and 50kHz are a balance for both of these conflicting requirements.
  • One of the major advantage is that by having only one connection to the fence for all of the functions (both measurement and communications) there can be no error caused by the wrong terminal being in contact with the fence.
  • Another major advantage is that the safety of the operator will not be compromised as they cannot mistakenly have the measurement terminal in contact with the fence instead of the communications terminal when issuing a control function such as to turn off the energiser output, as the same fence contact device is used for all of the functions of the device.
  • FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the major assemblies of the present invention in accordance with one embodiment
  • Figure 2 is a more detailed view of the assemblies in figure 1
  • Figure 3 is a block diagram of the present invention as implemented in a preferred embodiment.
  • the portable apparatus (1 ) consists of a fence voltage and current measurement assembly (2) and a fence communications assembly (3), connected to a fence coupling circuit (4). Both the measurement assembly and the coupling circuit of the communications assembly are connected to the fence contact device (5).
  • the fence measurement assembly (2) and the fence communication assembly (3) are also connected to a keypad (6) and a display device (7).
  • the key pad (6) is used to select the function of the portable apparatus (1 ) and the display device (7) is used by the operator to check that the correct function has been requested by the keypad (6), and the display device (7) is also used to determine the output from the fence measurement unit (2).
  • Figure (2) is a more detailed description of the portable apparatus (1 ) however the keypad (6) and the display device (7) have been omitted for clarity.
  • the fence coupling circuit (4) consists of an inductive pickup (8) for use in the current measuring circuit (9), and a pulse limiting impedance circuit (10) that is used for the communications circuit.
  • the fence coupling circuit also includes a high impedance (17) which is connected to a voltage measuring circuit (11 ).
  • the output of the pulse limiting impedance unit (10) is connected to fence communication assemblies (13) (14) (15) (16) through a pulse limiter (12) in order to protect the communication circuits from the energiser pulse.
  • the output of the pulse limiter (12) is connected to the receiver filter (13), the output of which is fed to the receiver communication assembly (14).
  • the transmitter assembly (15) has its output connected to a tuned drive circuit (16), the output of which is fed to the fence contact device (5) via the pulse limiter (12) and the pulse limiting impedance (10).
  • FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a portable apparatus (21 ) provided by the present invention as implemented in a preferred embodiment.
  • the portable apparatus (21 ) includes a current measurement assembly (22) as part of an overall measurement assembly.
  • the current measurement assembly (22) includes an inductive coupling to a fence line (31).
  • the inductive coupling of the current measurement assembly (22) therefore eliminates the need to provide a physical connection to the fence line (31 ) to measure the current of energiser pulses travelling along the line.
  • the portable apparatus (21 ) also includes a fence contact device (23) which is linked to a further subsystem of the measurement assembly, being a voltage measurement assembly consisting of a voltage measurement coupling assembly (27) linked to a voltage measurement circuit (28).
  • the fence contact device (23) is also directly linked to a communications coupling assembly (24) which in turn is linked to a communication assembly (25).
  • the portable apparatus (21 ) also includes a processing means, formed in this embodiment by a micro processor (26) which receives inputs signals from the communication assembly (25) as well as the current measurement assembly (22) and voltage measurement circuit (28).
  • the portable apparatus (21 ) also includes a keypad (29) allowing a user to enter information or commands into the processor (26), as well as a display (30) which allows information to be presented to a user by the processor (26).
  • both the communication assembly and the voltage measurement portions of the measurement assembly are directly linked to the fence contact device (23).
  • these circuits are protected from damage by energiser pulses traversing the fence line (31 ) in addition to stopping the circuitry of each assembly interfering with the operation of the other.
  • the communications coupling assembly (24) can includes a high frequency pass circuit or a resonant circuit which presents a low impedance at the frequency of communication signals and a high impedance at the frequency of energiser pulses traversing the fence line (31 ).
  • a high frequency pass circuit or a resonant circuit which presents a low impedance at the frequency of communication signals and a high impedance at the frequency of energiser pulses traversing the fence line (31 ).
  • capacitor(s) or capacitor(s) and inductor(s) can be used to form such a high pass filter or resonant circuit adapted to operate at the frequencies of relevance.
  • the voltage measurement coupling assembly (27) is configured to present a high impedance at both the communication signal frequencies and also the fence energiser pulse frequencies. This effective high impedance of the voltage measurement coupling assembly ensures that the associated portions of the measurement assembly do not load down either communication signals on the fence line (31 ) or electric fence energiser pulses to be measured.
  • the voltage measurement coupling assembly (27) may be formed by a voltage divider with a high initial input impedance to divide down the voltage signal supplied or sent to the actual voltage measuring circuitry (28).
  • a coupling voltage divider may have an input impedance of approximately an order of magnitude higher than the impedance of the driving source.
  • the divider resistor is such a value that results in the fence voltage being divided down to a level capable of being processed by low voltage circuits - such as for example of the order of 5 volts.
  • a low value capacitor may also form part of such a voltage coupling measurement assembly to reduce the amount of energy transferred to voltage measurement circuitry employed in conjunction with the present invention.

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  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Mathematical Physics (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Arrangements For Transmission Of Measured Signals (AREA)

Abstract

La présente invention se rapporte à un appareil portable amélioré (21) conçu pour être utilisé avec un système de clôture électrique. L'appareil portable (21) comprend au moins un ensemble de mesures (27) conçu pour mesurer au moins un paramètre de fonctionnement d'une clôture électrique et un ensemble émetteur (25) en sus d'un dispositif de contact de clôture (23) qui est conçu comme une borne de contact unique. L'appareil portable est agencé de sorte que l'ensemble de mesures et l'ensemble émetteur (27, 25) soient raccordés électriquement au dispositif de contact de clôture (23).
PCT/NZ2005/000030 2004-02-25 2005-02-25 Appareil portable conçu pour etre utilise avec un conducteur electrique WO2005079561A1 (fr)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
NZ531133 2004-02-25
NZ531133A NZ531133A (en) 2004-02-25 2004-02-25 A portable tester and remote control apparatus for an electric fence

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2005079561A1 true WO2005079561A1 (fr) 2005-09-01

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Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/NZ2005/000030 WO2005079561A1 (fr) 2004-02-25 2005-02-25 Appareil portable conçu pour etre utilise avec un conducteur electrique

Country Status (2)

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NZ (1) NZ531133A (fr)
WO (1) WO2005079561A1 (fr)

Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP0131738B1 (fr) * 1983-06-14 1987-09-23 Siemens Aktiengesellschaft Dispositif de mesure pour détecter la capacité ou les altérations propres à une clôture capacitive de protection
EP0651594B1 (fr) * 1993-10-27 1997-04-09 Valéry Hamm Dispositif d'alimentation et de surveillance d'une clÔture électrique
DE20205838U1 (de) * 2002-04-15 2002-07-18 Hurm, Christian, 93051 Regensburg Weidezaunüberwachungsgerät

Patent Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP0131738B1 (fr) * 1983-06-14 1987-09-23 Siemens Aktiengesellschaft Dispositif de mesure pour détecter la capacité ou les altérations propres à une clôture capacitive de protection
EP0651594B1 (fr) * 1993-10-27 1997-04-09 Valéry Hamm Dispositif d'alimentation et de surveillance d'une clÔture électrique
DE20205838U1 (de) * 2002-04-15 2002-07-18 Hurm, Christian, 93051 Regensburg Weidezaunüberwachungsgerät

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
NZ531133A (en) 2005-11-25

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