Waveform disturbance detection apparatus and method

A waveform disturbance detection apparatus for detecting disturbances in alternating current electromagnetic energy waveform, said alternating current electromagnetic energy waveform having a plurality of periodic, substantially similar cycles, comprising

• attenuator means for attenuating said electromagnetic energy waveform, thereby generating an attenuated electromagnetic energy waveform;
• amplifier means for amplifying said attenuated electromagnetic energy waveform, thereby generating a modified electromagnetic energy waveform;
• analog to digital converter means for sampling said modified electromagnetic energy waveform, generating a plurality of samples, and converting said samples into digital signals;
• and
• processing means for evaluating said digital signals so as to detect disturbances in said electromagnetic energy waveform, wherein said processing means detects said disturbances by comparing a particular one of said digital signals that represents a particular one of said samples in a particular current one of said cycles with a corresponding one of said digital signals that represents a corresponding one of said samples from an immediately preceding one of said cycles, said processing means comprises
• buffer means for storing a plurality of said corresponding digital signals, wherein each of said corresponding digital signals is from said immediately preceding cycle, whereby said particular current digital signal is compared with said corresponding digital signal from said immediately preceding cycle;
• and
• disturbance counter means for counting the number of said disturbances, wherein said counter means is incremented when said particular digital signal representing said particular sample exceeds a predetermined tolerance range.

A method of detecting waveform disturbances in an alternating current electromagnetic energy waveform, said alternating current electromagnetic energy waveform having a plurality of periodic, substantially similar cycles, comprising

• sampling said electromagnetic energy waveform to generate a plurality of samples;
• converting said samples into digital signals;
• storing said digital signals of at least a selected one of said cycles;
• storing said digital signals of a particular one of said cycles which immediately precedes said selected one of said cycles;
• comparing a particular one of said digital signals that represents a particular one of said samples in said selected cycle with a corresponding one of said digital signals that represents a corresponding one of said samples of the cycle which immediately preceded the selected cycle to detect a disturbance in said particular digital signal;
• and
• counting said disturbance when said particular digital signal exceeds a predetermined tolerance range.

A method of detecting waveform disturbances in alternating current electromagnetic energy waveform, said alternating current electromagnetic energy waveform having a plurality of periodic, substantially similar cycles, comprising

• attenuating said electromagnetic energy waveform to generate an attenuated electromagnetic energy waveform;
• amplifying said attenuated electromagnetic energy waveform to generate a modified electromagnetic energy waveform;
• sampling said modified electromagnetic energy waveform to generate a plurality of samples;
• converting said samples into digital signals;
• processing said digital signals to detect disturbances in said electromagnetic energy waveform, said processing step comprising the steps of
• storing said digital signals of a particular, current one of said cycles;
• storing said digital signals of a cycle which immediately precedes the current one of said cycles;
• comparing a particular one of said digital signals that represents a particular one of said samples in said particular current cycle with a corresponding one of said digital signals that represents a corresponding one of said samples of said immediately preceding cycles to detect a disturbance on said alternating current electromagnetic energy waveform;
• and
• counting said disturbance when it exceeds apredetermined tolerance range to obtain a count of the number of the disturbances in the particular current cycle.

A method of detecting variances in the waveshape of a waveform, said waveform having a plurality of periodic, substantially similar cycles, comprising

• sampling said waveform to generate a plurality of samples;
• converting said samples into digital signals;
• storing said digital signals of a particular one of said cycles;
• storing said digital signals of the cycle which immediately precedes the particular one of said cycles;
• comparing a particular one of said digital signals that represents a particular one of said samples in said particular cycle with a corresponding one of said digital signals that represents a corresponding one of said samples of said immediately preceding cycle to detect a variance in said particular digital signal;
• and
• counting said variance when it exceeds a predetermfined tolerance range.

A waveform disturbance detection apparatus for detecting disturbances in an alternating waveform having periodic, normally similar cycles, comprising

• means for obtaining consecutive samples from a current cycle of the waveform;
• means for storing consecutive reference samples from a reference cycle, wherein the reference cycle is the cycle which immediately preceded the current cycle of the waveform;
• means for comparing each of the consecutive samples from the current cycle, as each consecutive sample is obtained, to a corresponding one of the reference samples stored in the storing means to detect whether a disturbance is present in the waveform;
• and
• means for replacing each of the reference samples stored in the storing means with the corresponding sample from the current cycle against which it was compared, so that the reference samples in the storing means are updated each time a sample from the current cycle is evaluated.