Low cost virtual flickermeter

The paper deals with light intensity fluctuations that are perceived by human brain as light flicker. The importance of the flicker effect comes from its influence on human health and behaviour, which can result in financial loses in various industrial productions. This paper proposes low cost solution for measurement of the flicker effect based on virtual instrumentation and software platform LabVIEW. The paper covers following issues: voltage fluctuations which cause light flicker, necessary hardware for processing voltage and current signals, virtual flickermeter model and validation of the flickermeter according actual IEC standard. The hardware solution shown in the paper could be used for measuring of other power quality parameters if additional subroutines are implemented in the software.