An approach to fault location in HVDC lines using mathematical morphology

This paper presents an approach to fault location in HVDC transmission lines. A superimposed signal calculated from voltages and currents sampled in the same terminal is processed by a morphological filter in order to highlight the wavefronts and allow the fault location. The morphological filter was adopted due to its simplicity and low computational cost. A suitable combination of superimposed signal, morphological filter and Structuring Element (SE) enabled developing a simple algorithm to detect the correct wavefronts and, consequently, estimate the fault position. The results were obtained considering data sampled in one or two terminals. The influence of the main fault parameters as well as the approach parameters were evaluated and the results are promising.