Series arc fault circuit breaker and current interrupt method

There is provided a circuit breaker (10) for interrupting current in an outer conductor (20). The circuit breaker includes separable contacts (24), a trigger mechanism (26), a bimetal (30), a microprocessor (12), a series arc detection sequence (14), a low-pass filter circuit (38), and a high-pass filter circuit (36). The trigger mechanism selectively opens the separable contacts when it is triggered. The series arc detection sequence is memory resident on the microprocessor, and includes a plurality of row error detection algorithms (72, 76, 80, 84). The low-pass filter circuit provides a low-pass signal (48) of the series arc detection sequence. The high pass filter circuit provides a high-pass signal (46) of the series current arc recognition sequence. The sequence of selects a particular algorithm from the plurality of algorithms based on from the low-pass signal. The sequence computes a plurality of statistical features from the high-pass signal and sends an output signal (54) to trigger the triggering mechanism based on a comparison of the plurality of statistical characteristics of the particular algorithm.