Patent ID: 7557330

Claim:
A fault protected aircraft heated floor panel, comprising: upper and lower floor panel skins; an electro-resistive heater element interposed between the upper and lower floor panel skins and separated from at least one of the upper and lower floor panel skins by a dielectric material through which a reactive current may flow between the heater element and the at least one of the upper and lower floor panel skins; and a controller for controlling current delivered to the heater element, the controller including a ground fault interrupt circuit that detects when current provided to the heater element falls outside of predefined upper and lower current limits, the predefined lower limit being a non-zero limit which takes into account the reactive current when the floor panel is operating in a non-fault condition, wherein the controller interrupts the current delivered to the heater element when the ground fault interrupt circuit detects the current falling outside of the upper and lower current limits.