The first line of defense against tampering by bypassing current, reversing connections, and disconnecting leads is the meter case. Due to this, it is common for utilities to require some form of intrusion detection system to detect when someone opens a case.  In this section, we will cover how to detect someone trying to open the case of a meter.

For anti-tampering, it is common to try to detect the presence of a strong magnet. In this section, we will cover the use of hall sensors for low-power detection of strong magnetic fields in three dimensions.  Details on our magnetic tamper detection reference design, TIDA-00839, will be provided as well as some of the design considerations that were kept in mind when creating this reference design.  

In this section, we will cover how to harden a meter against these magnetic tamper attacks by using shunts for current sensors. For poly-phase implementations, I will go over how to use isolated delta sigma modulators to add the necessary isolation to use shunt current sensors and create magnetically immune poly-phase energy measurement systems. The TIDA-00601 and TIDA-01094 reference designs, which show how to implement a poly-phase isolated shunt measurement system, will be discussed as well as the associated AMC1304 high-side power supplies used in these designs.

This section covers what is meter tampering, why is this a problem for utility providers, and some common ways a meter is tampered.

These videos provide understanding of the fundamental functions used for rapid prototyping on TI solutions with minimal or no programming, including the following:

• Implementing necessary prototyping functions such clocks/GPIO, Read A/D, I2C/SMBus, etc.
• Seamless interface of various analog EVMs for customer “proof of concept”
• Standalone UI – Button, (GP Input - GPIO), LCD Display (“Hello”), Music, Serial Interface (Putty, Echo)

How many times have you said, “I would like to prototype an idea with TI silicon but I can not get software resources" or “I don’t know how to prototype/program.”

This training shows you how to get started prototyping on TI solutions with minimal or no programming, including the following tasks:

In this section, a summary of the entire “Anti-tamper Techniques to Thwart Attacks on Smart Meters” training module would be covered.  This summary would cover the “Detecting case tamper attacks using inductive switches “, “Detecting magnetic tampering using hall-effect sensors “,  and “Hardening a meter against magnetic tamper attacks “ sections of the training series. Links will be provided for the reference designs and design tools that were discussed during this training series.

TI Precision Labs is the electronics industry’s most comprehensive online classroom for analog engineers. The on-demand courses and tutorials include introductory ideas about device architecture in addition to advanced, application-specific problem-solving, using both theory and practical knowledge. Use these hands-on courses to predict circuit performance and move seamlessly from abstract concepts to specific formula in an easy-to-follow format. Industry experts present each topic in order to help reduce design time and move quickly from proof-of-concept to productization.

There are a variety of applications for Hall Effect sensors, each with its own unique system requirement. The series of videos in this section will walk through some of the top Hall applications such as rotary encoding and proximity sensing.