EFFICIENT POWER FACTOR MEASUREMENT SYSTEM WITH LABVIEW INTERFACING FOR HOUSEHOLD APPLICATIONS?

Power factor gives the relationship between the input voltage and input current waveforms to an electrical load, powered by an AC source. Most often the AC utility mains will be the source but in certain cases it could also be the output of a motor drive, inverter or other localized AC source. The electrical energy quality is an important factor technically and economically. Accurate power factor measurement is important in any electrical system. This paper presents a simple, cost effective and accurate power factor measurement system implemented using ATmega microcontroller and LabVIEW. In the proposed hardware current measurements are taken using a Hall Effect current sensor and voltage measurements are directly obtained by stepping down the input voltage and converting it to a suitably proportional voltage input to microcontroller. The system is able to effectively measure power factor of appliances consuming power between 20W and 1000W.