Localization of partial discharges using time difference of arrival of radiation fields

The authors propose a method for the localization of the position of a partial discharge (PD) by detecting the radiation electromagnetic fields generated by the PD with some antennas and determining the time difference of arrivals of the signals detected. To verify the principal of the method, the authors installed four antennas and simulated GIS (gas-insulated switchgear) in a utility´s 500 kV substation and conducted experiments on estimating the position of a partial discharge. In the experiments the method made it possible to successfully localize, with high accuracy, radiation source points with discharge of several tens of thousands PC. The feasibility of the principle of the proposed method was thus verified. It was also found that the smoothed differential method was effective in determining the difference between the times required by the partial discharge signal to reach the two pairs of antennas