Metricom, Inc.

Curtis V Bradford

A digital current meter, usable either alone or in combination with a voltage meter, is disclosed. The current meter includes a current sensor which outputs the time derivative of the current flowing through the load being measured. The differentiated current signal is digitally sampled, usually by a sigma-delta sampler, filtered, and digitally integrated. A feedback path is provided to remove the direct-current (DC) component of the current signal, to keep the integrator from going out of range. A bleeder feedback channel around the digital integrator is provided to keep the digital integrator from permanently latching an impulse. In combination with a voltage meter, a half-sample delay is introduced in the current signal path, to compensate for the lead provided by the combination of the analog differentiator and the digital integrator, and the voltage signal path uses filters with the same characteristics as the current channel, to match the delay in the two channels.

Method and apparatus for measuring electrical parameters using a

In the present invention, true volt-amperes reactive power is measured by sampling instantaneous voltage values of voltage and substantially simultaneously instantaneous values of current of an arbitrary waveform, multiplying the voltage samples by the discrete Hilbert transform (corrected by a sign inversion) to obtain voltage samples of all frequencies shifted by -90.degree. over the bandwidth of the signal of interest and then multiplying this quadrature voltage sample by the corresponding current samples to obtain a true value for VARs, i.e., proportional to the instantaneous volt-amperes reactive power under all conditions. The sampling rate and the period of sampling determine the bandwidth and accuracy of the sampling technique. The invention can be implemented in software or in suitable hardware components capable of sampling and delaying the signal of interest.

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Campbell, CA, United States of America

Curtis V Bradford