Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus

A modern .NET 10 library for M-Bus (Meter Bus) communication and frame parsing over TCP, UDP, and serial. Implements the EN 13757-2 (physical and link layer) and EN 13757-3 (application layer) standards.

What is M-Bus?

M-Bus (Meter-Bus) is a European standard for the remote reading of utility meters such as gas, water, and electricity. It is designed for cost-effective two-wire communication and supports both wired (EN 13757-2/3) and wireless (EN 13757-4) variants.

Typical use cases include:

• Remote reading of utility meters in residential and commercial buildings
• Centralized data collection via gateways or hand-held readers
• Alarm systems, heating control, and building automation

Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    IMBusMaster                            │
│  PingAsync, RequestDataAsync, ScanAsync, etc.            │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  IPacketMapper          │  IFrameParser / IFrameSerializer│
│  LongFrame → Packet     │  bytes ↔ MBusFrame records      │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                    IMBusTransport                         │
│  ConnectAsync, SendFrameAsync, ReceiveFrameAsync         │
├──────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────────────────┤
│  TCP     │  UDP         │  Serial                        │
│  Pipes   │  Socket      │  System.IO.Ports + PipeReader  │
└──────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘

Project Layout

Project	Description
Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.Abstractions	Interfaces, record types, enums -- zero dependencies
Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus	Core implementation: FrameParser, FrameSerializer, PacketMapper, VifLookupService, MBusMaster
Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.Transport.Tcp	TCP transport using System.IO.Pipelines
Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.Transport.Udp	UDP transport using Socket
Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.Transport.Serial	Serial transport wrapping System.IO.Ports with PipeReader

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK or later

Installation

dotnet add package Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus
dotnet add package Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.Transport.Tcp  # or .Udp / .Serial

Usage

With Dependency Injection

services.AddMBusCore();
services.AddSingleton<IMBusTransport>(sp =>
    new TcpMBusTransport("192.168.1.135", 502));

Retrieving meter telemetry

await using var transport = new TcpMBusTransport("192.168.1.135", 502);
await transport.ConnectAsync();

await using var master = new MBusMaster(
    transport,
    new FrameParser(),
    new FrameSerializer(),
    new PacketMapper(new VifLookupService()));

var packet = await master.RequestDataAsync(0x0a);
if (packet is VariableDataPacket vdp)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Device: {vdp.DeviceType}, Records: {vdp.Records.Length}");
    foreach (var record in vdp.Records)
        Console.WriteLine($"  {record.Units[0].Quantity}: {record.Value}");
}

Scanning for devices

var addresses = Enumerable.Range(0, 250).Select(i => (byte)i);
await foreach (var meter in master.ScanAsync(addresses))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Found meter at address {meter.Address}");
}

Parse a raw M-Bus frame

var parser = new FrameParser();
var mapper = new PacketMapper(new VifLookupService());

var bytes = "68 31 31 68 08 01 72 45 58 57 03 B4 05 ..."
    .HexToBytes();

var frame = parser.Parse(bytes);
if (frame.IsSuccess)
{
    var packet = mapper.MapToPacket(frame.Value!);
    // Use packet...
}

Design Principles

• Immutable data -- All frames and packets are C# record types
• Explicit errors -- MBusParseResult<T> instead of exceptions for parsing
• Async-first -- CancellationToken everywhere, IAsyncEnumerable for scanning
• Zero external dependencies -- Abstractions project has no NuGet dependencies
• Dependency Injection -- All services are injectable via IServiceCollection.AddMBusCore()
• Span-based parsing -- ReadOnlySpan<byte> for zero-allocation frame parsing

Building from source

dotnet restore Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.sln
dotnet build Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.sln --configuration Release
dotnet test Valley.Net.Protocols.MeterBus.sln --configuration Release

Changelog

v3.0.0

• Full architectural rewrite -- Multi-project solution with clean separation of concerns
• Replaced Valley.Net.Bindings dependency with native IMBusTransport abstraction
• Immutable record types for all frames (MBusFrame) and packets (MBusPacket)
• MBusParseResult<T> result type for explicit success/failure instead of exceptions
• ReadOnlySpan<byte>-based FrameParser replacing BinaryReader-based MeterbusFrameSerializer
• Consolidated VIF/VIFE/VIFE_FB/VIFE_FD into single VifLookupService with FrozenDictionary
• Async-first MBusMaster with CancellationToken and IAsyncEnumerable<MeterInfo> scanning
• TCP transport using System.IO.Pipelines for frame boundary detection
• UDP transport using raw Socket
• Serial transport wrapping System.IO.Ports with PipeReader
• IServiceCollection.AddMBusCore() for DI registration
• 168 unit tests using MSTest 4.x with [DynamicData] against 80+ real meter hex files
• Separate integration test project

v2.0.0

• Upgraded to .NET 10 (from .NET Standard 2.0 / .NET Framework 4.6.1)
• Added GitHub Actions CI/CD workflows (build, test, NuGet publish)
• Fixed critical bug in SelectSlave (InvalidCastException at runtime)
• Fixed event handler memory leak in MBusMaster
• Implemented SelectSlave secondary address padding logic
• Removed ~800 lines of dead/commented-out code
• Extracted IValueInformationField interface for VIF/VIFE types
• Cached VIF/VIFE dictionary lookups for improved performance
• Extracted MBusMaster communication pattern into reusable helper
• Refactored VIFE if/else chain to table-driven approach
• Extracted value parsing into dedicated ValueParser class
• Consolidated magic numbers into Constants.cs
• Consolidated duplicate LengthsInBitsTable
• General code cleanup and modernization

v1.0.2 (2019.10.13)

• Serial communication capability

v1.0.1 (2019.10.12)

• Bug fixes

v1.0.0 (2018.09.29)

• Initial release

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.