SYSTEM AND METHOD EMPLOYING A HIERARCHICAL LOAD FEATURE DATABASE TO IDENTIFY ELECTRIC LOAD TYPES OF DIFFERENT ELECTRIC LOADS

摘要

A method identifies electric load types (12) of a plurality of different electric loads (22, 24, 26, 28). The method includes providing a hierarchical load feature database (4) having a plurality of layers (6, 8,10); including with each of a plurality of the layers a corresponding load feature set, the corresponding load feature set of at least one (6) of the layers being different from the corresponding load feature set of at least another one (8,10) of the layers; including with one (10) of the layers a plurality of different electric load types (12); sensing a voltage signal (20) and a current signal (18) for each of the different electric loads; determining at least four different load features (32) from the sensed voltage signal and the sensed current signal for a corresponding one of the different electric loads; and identifying (34) by a processor (30) one of the different electric load types by relating the different load features to the hierarchical load feature database.