Image Centric Anti-Tampering Technique for AMI Smart Meter

Abstract

An additional anti-tampering is integrated to the smart meter unit to achieve more collectable evidences. A built-in high definition camera is another solution to accomplish still picture and video recording of an illegal person who approaches a smart meter to cheat electricity billing. In this paper, terminal cover opening, smart meter frame opening and electrical lines bypassing are three abnormal events that are investigated, in which the face detection of the person who stands in front of an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) smart meter will be detected and recorded. This action is performed by a separated camera controller unit inside smart meter. The Haar cascades algorithm is the important mechanism for face detection powered by Raspberry Pi3. The face detection process can be done for several face angles; therefore, the proposed system is sufficiently effective for realistic application, as shown in the experimental results.