Patent ID: 11916373
Assignee: GE AVIATION SYSTEMS LIMITED
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  B | IPC B  H

Claim 0:
1. A method of detecting a fault in a circuit, the circuit comprising a solid state power controller power switch operable to supply power from a power source to an electrical load, and a power cable electrically coupled between the power switch and the electrical load, the power cable having a conductive shielding, the method comprising:
comparing, in a comparator module, a sensed voltage of the conductive shielding or a sensed current at an output of the power switch with a threshold value representative of an occurrence of a fault in the power cable having the conductive shielding;
determining, by the comparator module, a fault is present based on the comparing;
generating, by a controller module of the solid state power controller, a first control signal to open the power switch to disable supplying power upstream of the fault;
determining whether the opening of the power switch has failed by determining whether the controller module has failed; and
upon a failure to open the power switch to disable supplying power upstream of the fault, generating a second control signal to close an active pull down switch to redirect supplying power to an electrical ground.