Patent ID: 8536856

Claim:
A mobile apparatus mounted to a motor vehicle for detecting an electric field, comprising: at least one sensor probe, mounted to the vehicle, that generates a signal corresponding to an electric field detected by the at least one sensor probe as the at least one sensor probe moves past a plurality of conductive objects proximate a street, wherein the at least one sensor probe comprises at least one electrode; at least one filter, coupled to the at least one sensor probe, that removes interfering electric field signals from the signal corresponding to the electric field, to limit the frequency of the signal to contain an expected frequency of a voltage anomaly; a processor, coupled to the filter, that digitizes the signal to form electric field data represented as a plurality of time domain samples, produces field strengths of each of the at least one sensor probes using the plurality of time domain samples and analyzes the field strengths to identify the voltage anomaly in the electric field, wherein the electric field data is analyzed based on an expected frequency pertaining to the voltage anomaly and wherein the voltage anomaly is generated by leakage of electric power from a power grid to an energized object in the plurality of conductive objects proximate the street; and an indicator, coupled to the processor, that alerts a user to a presence of the voltage anomaly in the electric field and indicates that at least one conductive object proximate the street is energized to a potentially harmful level.