Abstract: In view of problems of low efficiency and low reliability existed in traditional meter reading system of thermal power plant, an automatic meter reading system of thermal power plant based on ARM was designed. Design of hardware and software and working principle of the system were introduced in details. Based on LPC2368 microcontroller, the system automatically reads data of corresponding measuring instruments by data collctor, and then transmits the data to LPC2368 through RFID, so as to achieve real-time monitoring.