Patent ID: 7400150

Claim:
A remote fault monitoring system comprising: a plurality of remote fault detection devices distributed on a power distribution network, wherein each remote fault detection device includes a first electrical parameter measurement circuit electrically or electromagnetically coupled to a power distribution circuit neutral conductor, and adapted to sample the power distribution circuit neutral conductor to generate first samples that are obtained asynchronous of any injected signals generated by any other remote indication device, a second electrical parameter measurement circuit electrically or electromagnetically coupled to a power distribution circuit ground conductor, and adapted to sample the power distribution circuit ground conductor to generate second samples that are obtained asynchronous of any injected signals generated by any other remote indication device, a central processing unit (CPU) electrically coupled to the first and second electrical parameter measurement circuits and adapted to process the first and second samples to obtain electrical power parameter measurements respectively generated only by the first and second electrical parameter measurement circuits of the remote indication device, and a transceiver adapted to transmit the measurements obtained by the CPU; a monitoring station adapted to receive the measurements transmitted by the transceiver of each of the plurality of remote indication devices and to determine from the measurements whether a fault intermediate a pair of adjacent remote fault detection devices has occurred.