An efficient algorithm for partial discharge localization in high-voltage systems using received signal strength

The term partial discharge (PD) refers to a partial bridging of insulating material between electrodes that sustain an electric field in high-voltage (HV) systems. Long-term PD activity can lead to catastrophic failures of HV systems resulting in economic, energy and even human life losses. Such failures and losses can be avoided by continuously monitoring PD activity. Existing techniques used for PD localization including time of arrival (TOA) and time difference of arrival (TDOA), are complicated and expensive because they require time synchronization. In this paper, a novel received signal strength (RSS) based localization algorithm is proposed. The reason that RSS is favoured in this research is that it does not require clock synchronization and it only requires the energy of the received signal rather than the PD pulse itself. A comparison was made between RSS based algorithms including a proposed algorithm, the ratio and search and the least squares algorithm to locate a PD source for nine different positions. The performance of the algorithms was evaluated by using two field scenarios based on seven and eight receiving nodes, respectively. The mean localization error calculated for two-field-trial scenarios show, respectively, 1.80 m and 1.76 m for the proposed algorithm for all nine positions, which is the lowest of the three algorithms.