Fault Location for the NEPTUNE Power System

The objective of the North Eastern Pacific Time-Series Undersea Networked Experiment (NEPTUNE) program is to construct an underwater cabled observatory on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing the Juan de Fuca Tectonic Plate. The power system associated with the proposed observatory is unlike conventional terrestrial power systems in many ways due to the unique operating conditions of underwater cabled observatories. In the event of a backbone cable fault, the location of the fault must be identified accurately so that a repair ship can be sent to repair the cable. Due to the proposed networked, mesh structure, traditional techniques for cable fault identification can not achieve the desired level of accuracy. In this paper, a system-theoretic method is proposed for identification of the fault location based on the limited data available. The method has been tested with extensive simulations and is being implemented for the field test in Monterey, California. In this study, a lab test is performed for the fault location function