High impedance fault detection methodology using wavelet transform and artificial neural networks

This paper presents a new technique based on the combination of wavelet transform (WT) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) for addressing the problem of high impedance faults (HIFs) detection in electrical distribution feeders. The change in phase current waveforms caused by faults and normal switching events has been used in this methodology. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) used decomposes the time domain current signals into different harmonics in time-frequency domain and extracts special features to train ANNs. This preprocessing reduces the number of inputs to ANN and improves the training convergence. The ANN structure and learning algorithm used in this method is the multilayer perceptron network and Levenberg–Marquardt back-propagation algorithm, respectively.The signal data of several HIFs, low impedance faults (LIFs) and normal switching events have been obtained by the simulation of a real distribution network, with five feeders, under these different operations conditions, using SimPowerSystem Blockset of MATLAB. The results obtained have validated the effectiveness of the proposed methodology to detect HIFs and discriminate them from normal transient operations.

Research highlights
► New high impedance fault detection methodology in distribution networks.
► Based on a combined use of wavelet transform and artificial neural networks.
► Discriminates high impedance faults from normal transient operations.
► Validated through extensive simulations of a real distribution system in Matlab.