<![CDATA[The increasing demand for electrical energy in low-voltage distribution systems raises serious concerns regarding power quality, particularly low power factors caused by inductive loads like induction motors, transformers, and ballasts. Such conditions lead to higher reactive power consumption, voltage drops, line losses, and utility penalties. Conventional capacitor banks operated manually or via relays exhibit limited response speed and accuracy, motivating the development of microcontroller-based Automatic Power Factor Controllers (APFC). This study aims to design, analyze, and validate a simulation model of an APFC based on the Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 employing a zero-crossing detection algorithm for reactive power compensation. The research adopts a quantitative simulation approach using MATLAB/Simulink R2023a. Five loading scenarios with initial power factors of 0.55–0.80 and inductive loads from 100 to 1000 W were tested under three conditions: uncompensated, fixed capacitor compensation, and automatic APFC compensation. The RP2040 platform was modeled using discrete-time blocks representing its 133 MHz dual-core processor, 12-bit ADC resolution, and 10 μs sampling period. Each scenario underwent 30 simulation iterations to obtain statistically representative data. The results demonstrate that the proposed system successfully increased the average power factor from 0.684 to 0.976, achieving an average switching response time of 36.3 ms and a phase angle measurement error of 1.82%. Paired t-test analysis (p < 0.001) confirms a statistically significant improvement in the power factor. These findings imply that the RP2040-based APFC offers an efficient, accurate, and economical model scalable for small-to-medium distribution systems supporting national energy conservation goals.]]>
