Arcing fault detection module
US6002561A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Jan 14, 1998 |
| Grant date | Dec 14, 1999 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 14, 2018 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH02H3/52
- WIPO fieldElectrical machinery, apparatus, energy
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An arcing fault detection module (4) for detecting arcing faults in an electrical current distribution circuit (8) comprises a filter circuit (9) and an autocorrelation circuit (10). The filter circuit (9) is electrically connected to the distribution circuit (8) and samples current with the distribution circuit. The filter circuit (9) includes a band pass filter (12) to filter out fundamental and high frequency components from the sampled current, and a comparator (13) to convert the sampled current to a digital signal. The autocorrelation circuit (10) receives the digital signal from the filter circuit (9). The autocorrelation circuit (10) includes a plurality of shift registers (15-18) for storing the digital signal for a predetermined sample period, and a plurality of EXCLUSIVE-OR gates (35-37,41, 43, 44) and OR gates (38, 39) to detect odd and even harmonic signals. An integrator-counter (47) electrically connects to certain EXCLUSIVE-OR and OR gates, and provides an arc indicative signal when the absolute value of the even and odd harmonic signals is equal to a predetermined number.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.