Patent ID: 8461845
Filing Date: 2013-06-11
Classification: G01R,H01H,H02J,Y02B,Y02E,Y04S

Abstract:
1. A method for detecting the state of at least one element of a circuit comprising: a load, powered by an A.C. voltage (Vac) and in series with a first switch, wherein the state of the element is obtained by analyzing the amplitude of a current (Iin) sampled from a junction point of the load and of the first switch, wherein the analysis comprises: comparing, at several times in a period of the A.C. voltage, the amplitude of the current (Iin) with at least one predetermined current threshold (TH−; TH+); forming a multi-bit word of logic states from the results of at least two of the comparisons; receiving in a lookup table the multi-bit word of logic states; and comparing the multi-bit word of logic states with multi-bit logic words stored in the lookup table, wherein at least one of the multi-bit logic words stored in the table is associated with a possible state of at least one element of the circuit.