A fast RMS meter for detecting sag events in household environments

Electronic equipment for detecting or compensating power quality disturbances in domestic appliances need fast and reliable voltage sag or swell detection algorithms. There are commonly used methods to detect voltage events, but the most popular is the measurement of the RMS value of voltage. Even this method has well-known associate drawbacks, a step forward in this way is presented in this paper: a fast, low cost and high efficiency RMS meter that uses a minimum algorithm for calculating the voltage RMS value in a single phase supply line that can be embedded in a home area network device. The proposed system has been designed, implemented and tested and experimental results are shown to illustrate its functionality.