Comparative analysis between impulsive detection methods applied on partial discharge acoustic signals

Partial discharges (PD) plays an important role on power transmission lines and equipment failures therefore previously detect this high-voltage phenomena can prevent severe damages and avoid further outlay. Spark gaps discharges are among the most common PD in power transformers and other efficiency energy equipments. And in order to detect this effect optical and acoustic sensors are normally employed into monitoring systems. However optical sensors are expensive for transmission power lines and detecting acoustical signals from PD can be difficult since they are normally followed by other background sounds. In order to improve detection sound systems in this work we compare two methods that are regularly used on impulsive signal processing, the Variance Method (VM) and the Conditional Median Filter (CMF), to detect PD acoustic signals. From the presented results it is observed that the CMF is more appropriated for detecting impulsive PD although the VM detected less false positive discharge and can still be further optimized.