Design of a High-Accuracy and Traceable Reference Instrument for Flickermeter Certification

Abstract

This paper presents the software design, hardware implementation, and performance characterization of a reference instrument for the metrological certification of commercial flickermenters. The proposed architecture is enriched by two novel functionalities: a spectral analysis approach for identifying the modulation frequency and type, and a programmable trigger for a precise time alignment of the considered observation interval. The estimation accuracy of the proposed instrument is characterized in laboratory tests as provided by the IEC Std 61000-4-15 in terms of instantaneous and short-term flicker.