Detecção de cargas elétricas não permitidas em quartos hospitalares por meio da supervisão da corrente elétrica

Abstract

A hospital environment consist of various electrical equipment, from devices common to the home environment to devices for treating diseases. During periods of intense cold, patients and their families use electric heaters that overload and present greater risks to the electrical installation of hospitals; this can cause circuit breakers to disconnect, cables, sockets and connectors to overheat, and ultimately can cause fire and permanent damage to the physical structure of the hospital. The assistance team to this audience cannot always monitor, guide or block the entrance of such equipments, as its use is not allowed. The present work introduces a noninvasive method of monitoring that makes readings of the electric current of the hospital rooms to detect current variations related to the consumption of an electric heater and to inform when it is turned on. The system, which uses embedded computing, has the Texas Instruments TM4C1294XL board that captures and sends samples of this current via Ethernet interface to a computer that, using Python programming language, classifies occurrences in predetermined events, stores them in database and provides a web interface to alert responsible to risk mitigation measures. In addition, limits are set for phase and leakage currents so you can be informed when they pose a risk to the electrical installation and the patient. Tests have confirmed the effectiveness of monitoring and shown excellent performance in detecting wiring of non-allowed electric heaters, even when other hospital loads were connected to the circuit and yet differentiating some heater-like but permitted power loads, showing that it is possible to supervise the power grid non-invasively and detect unwanted devices.