Mar 24 2010
EDSA, the leading developer of power analytics solutions for the design, testing, and management of complex electrical power systems, today announced that is has been awarded a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its Paladin® Real-time Arc Flash Advisor™ software. It marks another significant patent award for EDSA, as the Company increases its technological lead in the emerging field of Power Analytics™.
EDSA now has nearly 100 patent awards or applications pending worldwide for its Paladin model-based power systems modeling and predictive diagnostics technology. Its Paladin® family of products helps organizations to ensure that their electrical power infrastructure is optimally-designed (Paladin® DesignBase™), performs precisely as intended in terms of reliability and energy efficiency (Paladin® Live™), and operates flawlessly as organizations make real-time transitions between public and on-premise power sources (Paladin® SmartGrid™.) By continually calibrating operating conditions with the original, as-design CAD model, the Paladin platform is the only real-time power analytics solution for diagnosing electrical power problems or energy inefficiencies at their earliest stages.
Paladin Real-Time Arc Flash Advisor
The Paladin Real-Time Arc Flash Advisor (recently allowed U.S. Patent Application 11/771,681) is the industry’s first software program that enables organizations to make up-to-date assessments of changing arc flash hazards. Though electrical accidents represent a statistically small percentage of all work-related incidents, they are disproportionately fatal: according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), electrical injuries in the workplace – in particular, phenomena called “arc flash” accidents – result in the death of a facilities worker every 28 hours, even in facilities that have passed formal inspections within recent months.
By maintaining an uninterrupted, 360 degree view of the facility and its potential arc flash hazards, the Paladin Real-Time Arc Flash Advisor can provide detailed, updated advisories for site personnel regarding the appropriate safety procedures and protective gear recommended to work in a given vicinity. Since its introduction in 2008, the Paladin Real-Time Arc Flash Advisor has been installed in customer facilities across the United States, to help improve worker safety in areas where the potential for electrical accidents and injuries is high. The patent notes that the Paladin Real-Time Arc Flash Advisor is a system for making real-time predictions about an arc flash event on an electrical system, comprising:
- A data acquisition component communicatively connected to a sensor configured to acquire real-time data output from the electrical system;
- An analytics server communicatively connected to the data acquisition component;
- A virtual system modeling engine configured to generate predicted data output for the electrical system utilizing a virtual system model of the electrical system;
- An analytics engine configured to monitor the real-time data output and the predicted data output of the electrical system; the analytics engine further configured to initiate a calibration and synchronization operation to update the virtual system model when a difference between the real-time data output and the predicted data output exceeds a threshold;
- A decision engine configured to compare the real-time data output against the predicted data output to filter out and interpret indicia of electrical system health and performance; and
- An arc flash simulation engine configured to analyze the virtual system model to forecast an aspect of the arc flash event; and
- A client terminal communicatively connected to the analytics server and configured to communicate the forecasted aspect
“EDSA is very pleased to be making progress securing the patents needed to protect our intellectual property, but we are even more proud of the health and safety benefits products like our Arc Flash Advisor bring to the workplace,” said Kevin Meagher, Chief Technology Officer for EDSA. “Mission-critical facilities have enormous power requirements and with all that electrical power comes the potential for injury. We think the Paladin Real-Time Arc Flash Advisor is a milestone product in helping to promote worker safety in any facility where the risk of such injury looms.”
EDSA’s Paladin Real-Time Arc Flash Advisor is available as an optional feature – priced at $35,000 -- for the Company’s Paladin Live power analytics platform. Entry-level pricing for Paladin Live is $20,000 for a Class 1, 500-channel system.
Source: http://www.edsa.com