A virtual instrument for real time power quality measurement under nonsinusoidal conditions

Real time analysis of power quality is an important consideration to electrical utilities and industrial customers so that diagnosis and mitigation of such disturbances can be implemented quickly. This paper presents the development of a computer based data acquisition system that provides real time measurement of power quality under sinusoidal and nonsinusoidal conditions. The proposed system simultaneously collects the on-line signal across linear or nonlinear load and calculates the wavelet and fuzzy based power quality index of the signal. The proposed method mainly addresses two issues: effect of nonlinear load and nonsinusoidal power supply on the power quality of the signal.