Patent ID: 7826184

Claim:
A circuit interrupter for interrupting current on a line conductor, comprising: separable contacts in electrical communication with the line conductor; a trip mechanism for selectively opening said separable contacts upon receipt of a trip signal; a sensor in electrical communication with the line conductor; a processing device in electrical communication with said trip mechanism; a series arc detection sequence resident on said processing device, said series arc detection sequence comprising a plurality of series fault detection algorithms; and at least one filter circuit comprising a low-pass filter providing at least one signal from said sensor to said series arc detection sequence, said sequence selecting a particular algorithm from said plurality of algorithms based on said at least one signal, calculating a plurality of statistical features from said at least one signal, and generating said trip signal based on a comparison of said plurality of statistical features to said particular algorithm, wherein said low-pass filter circuit is configured to provide a low-pass signal from said sensor to said series arc detection sequence, said sequence selecting said particular algorithm from said plurality of algorithms based on said low-pass signal.