Development of Non-Contact Detection of a Charged Conductor and Visualization System

At a substation, the condition of an applied voltage is checked using a bulky contact-type electroscope. Although it is important to secure a safe working environment, it is a burden to workers. In addition, in an emergency investigation or at the time of an accident, an operator may erroneously recognize a power interruption and cause an electric shock. Therefore, it is desirable to develop technology that can easily distinguish the charged condition from a distance. In this research, the focus was on the slight vibration of the conductor owing to the Coulomb force generated when a high voltage was applied. A system for visualizing the charging state by detecting the vibration with radar and combining it with a stereo camera was developed. Its performance was then confirmed at an experimental site and substation. In addition, the effectiveness of a method that used independent component analysis to identify the harmonics of the power supply frequency and vibration resulting from the applied voltage was demonstrated.