Rainforest Automation
,
Inc
.
RAVEn™
XML API Manual
5
OVERVIEW
RAVEn™
XML API
The
RAVEn
™ is a USB device that communicates with a smart meter over a secured ZigBee
wireless network. The
RAVEn
™ is an endpoint on the network that is authorized and
authenticated to communicate with the smart meter. The XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
API (Application Programming Interface) described in this document provides a mechanism to
allow external applications to receive smart meter data from the
RAVEn
™.
Communications Model
The
RAVEn
™ is a USB device; the USB port is mapped to a virtual serial port, which shows up
as a standard COM port. Applications that can connect to a COM port can also connect to the
RAVEn
™. The
RAVEn
™ sends and receives data as a serial stream. The
RAVEn
™ uses an 8
bit Extended ASCII character set (code page 1252) to encode the data. This may change in the
future in order to support UTF-8.
Settings for the virtual serial COM port:
•
PORT NAME: determined by OS
•
BAUD RATE: 115,200
•
DATA BITS: 8
•
PARITY: N
•
STOP BITS: 1
The
RAVEn
™ uses an asynchronous serial communications model. This means that the
transmit and receive data streams are independent; the
RAVEn
™ can be sending and receiving
data at the same time. The
RAVEn
™ does not use hand shaking, acknowledgements, or time
synchronization.
The
RAVEn
™ is also a ZigBee device. It is ZigBee Smart Energy 1.0 compliant, and is certified
by the ZigBee Alliance to operate according to that standard. Therefore, the XML API options
are restricted to what is allowed by the ZigBee Smart Energy 1.0 standard. The
RAVEn
™ must
be authorized and authenticated by the ZigBee Coordinator before the
RAVEn
™ can
communicate with the smart meter. Generally, the smart meter is also the ZigBee Coordinator.
The
RAVEn
™ is authorized by the owner of the smart meter (i.e. the electric utility); the owner
needs the MAC ID and Install Code for the
RAVEn
™ in order to set up the authorization.
