Distinguishing power line arcing from RF emissions
AssigneeRadar Engineers
InventorForrest S. Seitz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Specific noise components in an input signal are identified and isolated for processing in a desired manner. The method comprises determining an interval during which the noise component is expected to occur and isolating a portion of the input signal occurring during that interval. Determination of the interval is made by sensing noise impulses in the input signal, temporally correlating the noise impulses, and estimating the time that the noise impulses are expected to recur. The input signal can then be passed during the interval to an output signal to enhance the noise component, or the input signal can be blanked from the output signal to reduce the noise component.
Claims9
In an apparatus for locating a source of power line arcing, the apparatus including;
- an antenna input port;
- an RF receiver having an input coupled to the antenna input port and providing an output signal at an output thereof;
- a noise detector having an input coupled to the output of the RF receiver;
- an improvement wherein the noise detector includes discriminating means coupled to the RF receiver output for discriminating impulse noise due to power line arcing from other impulse noise having a periodicity matching that of power line arcing.
A method of distinguishing noise having characteristics of power line arcing from other noise having the same periodicity as power line arcing, the method comprising:
- providing an input signal to be processed;
- detecting the presence of two or more noise impulses within a predetermined brief interval in said input signal, said brief interval being an interval during which a power line waveform is near an extremum;
- a fixed period following detection of said two or more noise impulses, providing a control signal related thereto to an electronic switch circuit, said electronic switch circuit serving to control passage of a signal related to said input signal to an output.
In a method of locating an arcing fault in a power distribution system, the power distribution system conveying an AC signal that reaches voltage extrema with a fixed periodicity, the method including receiving a wideband RF signal, analyzing the RF signal to identify noise pulses therein, and processing same to identify noise pulses that recur at integral multiples of said periodicity, an improvement allowing discrimination of noise pulses due to power distribution system arcing from other noise pulses having a like periodicity, comprising:
- detecting noise pulses that occur in groups of two or more during a brief interval coinciding with said extrema;
- and
- identifying said groups of detected noise pulses as noise pulses due to power distribution arcing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.