A wavelet-based fault location technique for aged power cables

A novel wavelet-based travelling wave cable fault locator scheme is presented in this paper. Using the theory of wavelet singularity detection as a powerful signal processing tool, the initial arrival of the voltage travelling waves at both sides of the power cable and the second arrival of the travelling waves at the first side can be identified reliably without the need for detection the sign of these waves. The developed wavelet processing is applied on the modal coordinated instead of the phase coordinates. The proposed scheme has the ability to eliminate the effect of the change in the propagation velocity of the travelling waves. This will help solving the problem of cable changing parameters especially the changing of the relative permittivity of the cable over its age. Cable changing parameters causes a large error in all fault location techniques, which use the value of velocity of propagation in calculations. Characteristics of the proposed protection algorithm are analyzed by extensive simulation studies using ATP/EMTP. The obtained results indicate an accepted degree of accuracy for the suggested fault locator. In addition, the results prove that the proposed wavelet-based scheme solves the problem of aging cables with changing parameters over the age of the power cable.