Patent ID: 7349188
Filing Date: 2008-03-25
Classification: H02H

Abstract:
1. An arc fault detector for an electrical system, the arc fault detector comprising: a sensed current signal generator generating from current flowing in the electrical system a sensed current signal; an integrator repetitively integrating an absolute value of the sensed current signal over equal time intervals to generate integrated sensed current values; a change indicator generating for each most recently completed time interval, a change indication when the integrated sensed current value for the most recently completed time interval changes by at least a threshold amount from the integrated sensed current value for the preceding time interval; a summer repetitively summing for each most recently completed time interval the number of change indications generated over a selected number of the most recently completed time intervals to generate a change count; a memory storing the change counts for the selected most recently completed intervals in a sequence of change counts; and a processor comprising: