In the current PDP technology, one of the most important issues in AC PDP is improvement of luminance and luminous efficacy. To improve luminance and luminous efficacy, new cell structure of PDP containing long discharge path is necessary. However, it causes an increment of firing voltage. In order to decrease firing voltage of AC PDP having long discharge gap, the protrusion electrode is proposed. To drop the firing voltage, the protrusion electrode is inserted into the forward area of the main discharge gap. This paper presents measurements of detailed optical and electrical characteristics of AC PDP with protrusion electrodes. The experimental results show that the proposed structure with gap 80um has lower firing voltage to 27V than that of the conventional long gap structure. Moreover, the ICCD(Intensified Charge Coupled Device) images of the proposed structure show quick discharge generation by 0.07usec and longer continuation by 0.05usec than that of the conventional long gap structure. Therefore, the proposed protrusion electrodes have higher luminance by 12.5% than that of the conventional structure, as having no decrement of Luminous efficacy.