New Basis for the Development of the next-generation Flickermeters

Flicker severity is a parameter defined in the Standard EN 50160 that involves both power quality and physiological features. Due to practical and theoretical reasons, the Flickermeter described by the relevant International Standard may lead to incorrect results when used to correlate voltage variations with annoyance caused by fluctuations of light emitted by other types of lamps different than those based on the incandescent-filament principle. Therefore, its replacement is under consideration by some international organizations given that these last type of lamps will be no more available on the marked starting from the next year. This paper is aiming at providing a contribution to the study of a new theory to be used for the design of the next generation Flickermeter that must account for a wider variety of luminous sources. In particular the research is focused on finding a new method for detecting the human being annoyance in presence of luminous flicker. It is based on the measurement of the pupil diameter under flicker conditions. First preliminary results confirm that this measurement technique can be considered for the above purpose.