Schneider Electric USA, Inc.

Michel Layour

Gary W Scott

Andi Jakupi

Hynek Raisigel

Paul Andrew Reid

Joseph R Beierschmitt

Costin Vasile

Systems and methods for detecting an arc fault in a circuit breaker use a single-coil current rate of change (di/dt) sensor for monitoring both low frequency alternating current (AC) and broadband high frequency noise on a power line. The di/dt sensor is optimized to amplify any broadband high frequency noise, typically from about 1 MHz to 40 MHz, that may be present on the power line. Low frequency signals representing the current being monitored, typically from about 1 Hz to 10 KHz, is provided to an active integrator circuit with a high gain to enable the single-coil sensitivity. To shorten capacitor charge up time of the active integrator circuit, a charging current is provided to the active integrator circuit upon startup of the circuit breaker.

Arc fault detection using single current sensor and wideband analog frontend

An arc fault detection system samples a high frequency signal on a power line sequentially at different frequency regions according to a frequency hopping sequence, which is repeated a number of times over a predefined period. The different frequency regions include at least one region with a carrier for power line communication on the power line and at least one region without a carrier for power line communication on the power line. The system obtains energy measurements for each frequency region based on the sampled signals, computes an energy level for each frequency region based on the measurements for each region, and assigns a binary value to each region according to the corresponding energy level. The binary value represents a presence or absence of signal content in the frequency region. The system determines a presence or absence of an arc fault based on the binary values for the frequency regions.

Arc fault detection using frequency hopping techniques

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Saint Laurent en Beaumont, France

Michel Layour