Patent ID: 7151656

Claim:
A system for determining whether arcing is present in an electrical circuit in response to a sensor signal corresponding to current in said circuit, said system comprising: a circuit for analyzing said sensor signal to determine the presence of broadband noise in a predetermined range of frequencies, and producing a corresponding output signal; and a controller for processing said sensor signal and said output signal to determine current peaks and current rise time and to determine, using said current peaks and rise times and the presence of broadband noise, whether an arcing fault is present in said circuit, by comparing data corresponding to said current peaks and rise times and broadband noise with preselected data indicative of an arcing fault; wherein said circuit for analyzing and said controller are integrated onto a single application specific integrated circuit chip (ASIC) and said circuit for analyzing includes at least two bandpass filters having different passbands, and a set of comparators for monitoring outputs of said bandpass filters, said comparators having outputs which change state when a predetermined threshold is exceeded, said circuit further including at least one counter which is incremented in response to components of high frequency in the pass bands of at least two of said bandpass filters which are simultaneously present.