Particle swarm based arc detection on time series in pantograph-catenary system

Pantograph-catenary system is the most important component for transmitting the electric energy to the train. If the faults have not detected in an early stage, energy can disrupt the energy and this leads to more serious faults. The arcs occurred in the contact point is the first step of a fault. When they are detected in an early stage, catastrophic faults and accidents can be avoided. In this study, a new approach has been proposed to detect arcs in pantograph-catenary system. The proposed method applies a threshold value to each video frame and the rate of sudden glares are converted to time series. The phase space of the obtained time series is constructed and the arc event is found by using particle swarm optimization. The proposed method is analyzed by using real pantograph-videos and good result have been obtained.