A fast arc fault detection method for AC solid state power controllers in MEA

Arc fault detection is desperately required in Solid State Power Controllers (SSPC) in addition to their fundamental functions because arcs will provoke growing harm and threat to aircraft safety. Experimental study has been done to obtain the faulted current data. In order to improve the detection speed and accuracy, two fast arc fault detection methods have been proposed in this paper with the analysis of only half cycle data. Both Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Wavelet Packets Decomposition (WPD) have been adopted to distinguish arc fault currents from normal operation currents. Analysis results show that Alternating Current (AC) arcs can be effectively and accurately detected with the proposed half cycle data based methods. Moreover, experimental verification results have also been provided.