It is well known that about 80% of electric fire occurs by arc fault. The arc fault can be generated in loose wire connection or damaged wire, outlets, appliances, extension cords, etc. To mitigate the electric fire, US mandated to use Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters (AFCI) since 2002. Before AFCI has been developed, Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCI) were used for prevention of electric shock accident but GFCIs are not able to detect arc fault that is main cause of electric fire. After AFCI requirement of US established, Canada, Europe, New Zealand also adopted the AFCI as mandatory. It is a worldwide trend to mandate AFCI in their countries. We are living in the era of changing from GFCIs to AFCIs. As the demand for AFCIs increases, many studies regarding development of AFCI products and technologies have been conducted but comparison study of operation characteristics of AFCI has not been done yet, thus in this paper we are going to conduct series of arc experiment with several AFCI products and compare their performance.

The existing arc fault circuit interrupters have the function of interrupting overloads, ground fault, and arc fault; however, they have neither the monitoring function to allow external monitoring nor the noti cation function to notify the re safety manager. This study investigates the arc fault circuit interrupters with the network function, which have not been studied so far. We intend to install these arc fault circuit interrupters in places such as server rooms, pigsties, chicken farms, markets, cultural assets, skyscrapers, and factories, where large loss may occur if the re safety managers do not recognize the electricity shutdown, in order to increase the e ciency of electricity management. If an overload, a short circuit, or an arc is detected when power is supplied to the load, the microprocessor generates a trip signal and cuts o the power by this trip signal. This situation is monitored in real time by external monitoring and noti ed to the re safety manager. The re safety manager can immediately recognize the situation when the arc fault circuit interrupter interrupts the circuit and takes the necessary action to manage the electricity e ciently.