Flicker Effect Analysis in Human Subjects: New Noninvasive Method for Next-Generation Flickermeter

Flicker severity is a parameter defined in the Standard EN 50160 that involves both power quality and physiological features. Due to practical and theoretical reasons, the flickermeter described by the relevant International Standard may lead to incorrect results when used to correlate voltage variations with annoyance caused by fluctuations of light emitted by other types of lamps different from those based on the incandescent-filament principle. Therefore, its replacement is under consideration by some international organizations, given that this last type of lamps will no longer be available on the market starting next year. This paper aims at providing a contribution to the study of a new theory to be used for the design of next-generation flickermeters that must account for a wider variety of luminous sources. In particular, the research is focused on finding a new method for detecting human being annoyance in the presence of luminous flicker that is based on the measurement of the pupil diameter under flicker conditions. In this connection, this paper first investigates on the performance of an ad-hoc test system with the main goal to prove and evaluate its accuracy. Then, the results of tests on six volunteers are presented and discussed.