High-Impedance Faulted Branch Identification Using Magnetic-Field Signature Analysis

In this paper, for the first time, a high-impedance fault indicator (HIFI), to be mounted on the poles of distribution feeders, is proposed to detect and track down the location of high-impedance faults (HIFs). The main contribution of this paper is the investigation of employing the magnetic-field strength signal, measured in the vicinity of the conductors of a feeder, to detect HIFs based on a novel pattern recognition method. The proposed HIFIs should be installed so that the faulted branch identification becomes possible and simple (i.e., at the sending ends of branches). Applying the data for HIFs, insulator leakage current and harmonic load from field tests and for other similar phenomena from simulations has shown high security and dependability of the proposed method as a computational model for HIFI.