Locating partial discharge sources in propulsion coils of superconducting Maglev systems using an on-board radio interferometer system

Propulsion coils are used for propelling vehicles in superconducting magnetic levitation (Maglev) systems. This paper presents experimental results for finding a propulsion coil with defects by using an on-board radio interferometer system. In the experiments, the antennas of the radio interferometer system were mounted on a mock-up of the body of Maglev vehicle; considering the real operation of Maglev systems, levitation-guidance coils were arranged in front of the propulsion coils attached to the sidewall of a short-sized concrete guideway. A generalized cross correlation (GCC) was embedded in the radio interferometer system in order to estimate the time delay between signals received with the antennas with higher accuracy. The experimental results demonstrated that the propulsion coil with defects placed behind the levitation-guidance coils can be found by using the on-board radio interferometer system.