Fault Detection, Classification & Location in a

Single Circuit Transmission Line using Wavelet

Transform
Pavan Kumar Thota
Dept.of Electrical & Electronics
Manipal Institute of Technology
urpavan009@gmail.com

Chaitanya K.S. Karanam

Dept.of Electrical & Electronics
Manipal Institute of Technology
chaitanya.karanam1992@gmail.com

Abstract The fault diagnosis of Electric Power System is a

process of discriminating the faulted system elements by
protective relays and subsequent tripping by circuit breakers.
Specially, as soon as some serious faults occur on a power
system, a lot of alarm information is transmitted to the control
center. Under such situation, the operators are required to
judge the cause, location, and the system elements with faults
rapidly and accurately. Thus, good fault diagnosis methods can
provide accurate and effective diagnostic information to
dispatch operators and help them take necessary measures in
fault situation so as to guarantee the secure and stable
operation of the Electric power system. More than 50% of the
faults occur in a transmission line. Hence it is important that
suitable fault detection methods be employed to reduce faults
in a transmission line.
Keywords Fault Index, Wavelet Transform, Mother Wavelet

I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, concern over the quality electric power
has been increasing rapidly since poor electric power quality
causes many problems for affected loads, such as
malfunctions, instabilities, short life time and so on. Poor
quality of electric power is normally caused by power line
disturbances such as impulses, notches, glitches, momentary
interruptions, wave faults, over voltages, under voltages and
harmonic distortion. In order to improve power quality, the
sources and causes of such disturbances must be known
before appropriate mitigating action can be taken. However,
in order to determine the causes and sources of disturbances,
one must have the capability to detect and localize those
disturbances and further identity (classify) the types of
disturbances. A fault occurs when two or more conductors
come in contact with each other or ground in three phase
systems. Faults are classified as single line-to-ground faults,
double line-to-ground faults, line-to-line faults and three
phase faults. Therefore, in such instances, the power system
components are subjected to greatest stresses from
excessive currents. These faults give rise to serious damage
on power system equipment. Fault occurring on
transmission and distributing line not only effect the

Under the Guidance of

Mrs R.C.Mala
Dept.of Electrical & Electronics
Manipal Institute of Technology
mala.rc@manipal.edu

equipment but also the power quality. So, it is necessary to

determine the fault type and the location on the line and
clear the fault as soon as possible in order to avoid such
damages. Flashover, lightning strikes, birds, wind, snow and
ice load lead to short circuits.
The wavelet multi-resolution analysis is a new and
powerful method of signal analysis and is well suited to
traveling wave signals. Wavelets can provide multiple
resolutions in both time and frequency domains. The
windowing of wavelet transform is adjusted automatically
for low and high-frequencies i.e., it uses short time intervals
for high frequency components and long-time intervals for
low frequency components. Wavelet analysis [7] is based on
the decomposition of a signal into scales using wavelet
analysing function called mother wavelet. The temporal
analysis is performed with a contracted, high frequency
version of the mother wavelet, while the frequency
analysis is performed with a dilated, low frequency version
of the mother wavelet.
Wavelets [2] are functions that satisfy the requirements
of both time and frequency localization. The necessary and
sufficient condition for wavelets is that it must be
oscillatory, must decay quickly to zero and must have an
average value of zero. In addition, for the discrete wavelet
transform considered here, the wavelets are orthogonal to
each other. Wavelet has a digitally implementable
counterpart called the discrete wavelet transform (DWT).
The generated waveforms are analysed with wavelet multiresolution analysis to extract sub-band information from the
simulated transients.
Daubechies [1] wavelets are commonly used in the
analysis of traveling waves. They were found to be closely
matched to the processed signal, which is of utmost
importance in wavelet applications. Daubechies wavelets
are more localized i.e., compactly supported in time and
hence are good for short and fast transient analysis and
provide almost perfect reconstruction. However, there are
some other wavelets show a good correlation with the
transient signals and may be used in the analysis. Several
wavelets have been used in this thesis. The comparison is

presented in section. Due to the unique feature of providing

multiple resolutions in both time and frequency by wavelets,
the sub-band information can be extracted from the original
signal. When applied to faults, this sub-band information is
seen to provide useful signatures of transmission line faults,
so that the fault location can be done more accurately. Then,
the aerial mode signal is analysed using wavelet transform.
From the different decomposed levels, only one level is
considered for the analysis. This level has the highest
energy level output and the dominant frequency of the
transient.
II. WAVELET TRANSFORM
Waveforms associated with the traveling waves are
typically non-periodic signals that contain localized high
frequency oscillations superimposed on the power frequency
and its harmonics. DFT was found to be not adequate for
decomposing and detecting these kinds of signals because it
does not provide any time information. On the other hand,
the STFT takes the time dependency of the signal spectrum
into account. However, the time-frequency plane cannot give
both accurate time and frequency localizations. The Wavelet
transform allows time localization of different frequency
components of a given signal like the STFT but its
transformation functions called wavelets which adjust their
time widths to their frequency in such a way that higher
frequency wavelets will be narrow and lower frequency ones
will be broader. Wavelets time frequency resolution
provides a useful tool for decomposing and analyzing fault
transient signals.
Given a function x (t), its Continuous Wavelet Transform
(CWT) is defined as follows:

) (1)
The transformed signal is a function with two variables b
and a, the translation and the scale parameter respectively.
(t) is the mother wavelet, which is a band-pass filter and
(t)* is the complex conjugate form . The factor
is used to ensure that each scaled wavelet function has the
same energy as the wavelet basis function. It should also
satisfy the following admissible condition:

(2)
The wavelet coefficients (WTC) of the signal are derived
using matrix equations based on decomposition and
reconstruction of a discrete signal. Actual implementation of
the DWT involves successive pairs of high-pass and lowpass filters at each scaling stage of the DWT. This can be
thought of as successive approximations of the same
function, each approximation providing the incremental
information related to a particular scale (frequency range).
The first scale covers a broad frequency range at the high
frequency end of the spectrum and the higher scales cover

the lower end of the frequency spectrum however with

progressively shorter bandwidths. Conversely, the first scale
will have the highest time resolution. Higher scales will
cover increasingly longer time intervals
III. COMPARISON BETWEEN WAVELET TRANSFORM AND
FOURIER TRANSFORM
The wavelet transform is often compared with the Fourier
transform. Fourier transform is a powerful tool for analyzing
the components of a stationary signal (a stationary signal is a
signal where there is no change in the properties of signal).
For example, the Fourier transform is a powerful tool for
processing signals that are composed of some combination
of sine and cosine signals (sinusoids). The Fourier transform
is less useful in analyzing non-stationary signal (a nonstationary signal is a signal where there is change in the
properties of signal). Wavelet transforms allow the
components of a non-stationary signal to be analyzed.
Wavelets also allow filters to be constructed for stationary
and non-stationary signals. The Fourier transform shows up
in a remarkable number of areas outside of classic signal
processing. Even taking this into account, we think that it is
safe to say that the mathematics of wavelets is much larger
than that of the Fourier transform. In fact, the mathematics of
wavelets encompasses the Fourier transform. The size of
wavelet theory is matched by the size of the application area.
Initial wavelet applications involved signal processing and
filtering. However, wavelets have been applied in many
other areas including non-linear regression and compression.
An offshoot of wavelet compression allows the amount of
determinism in a time series to be estimated. The main
difference is that wavelets are well localized in both time and
frequency domain whereas the standard Fourier transform is
only localized in frequency domain. The Short-time Fourier
transform (STFT) is also a time and frequency localized but
there are issues with the frequency time resolution and
wavelets often give a better signal representation using
Multi-resolution analysis.
IV. WAVELET DETAILS SELECTION
Wavelet analysis has been used to determine the TWs
that arrive at the relaying point as the result of faults and
switching operations. This can be achieved through the
analysis of details of fault index of current travelling wave
signal. The optimum level of wavelet detail coefficients is
selected based on its fault index over an window interval of
twice the transmission line travel time and is defined as

(3)
Where, di is the 3rd level detailed coefficient of the transient
signal under observation at that particular instant of time. M
to M+40 is time interval under observation.

V. PROPOSED SOLUTION

VI. FAULT LOCATION

A typical simple transmission line is taken and is

analyzed. This transmission line is subjected to different
faults at different time instants. The fault location techniques
are proposed and analyzed through wavelet transform & Stransform methods. The simulation is carried on
MATLAB/SIMULINK. The output waves of currents
obtained from scope are analyzed. The type of fault can be
identified by looking at the current waves obtained. If for
instance, there is a AG fault in the system, the waves
obtained show abrupt increase in current during the fault
cycle. The other two phases have lower currents than the
faulted phase. Thus fault index values are taken as a
discriminating factor in detecting the type of fault.

200kms
ES

ER

Fault
Fig.1 One-line Diagram of Single circuit transmission
model.
Table1. Table showing various parameters used in the
SIMULINK model
Sl.no

Entity

Parameter

Value

Source

Phase-to-Phase rms
voltage (Vs)

400e3

Source

Phase-to-Phase rms
voltage (Vr)

400e3 at angle
30

System

Frequency

50Hz

Transmission
line

Zero sequence
component

96.45+j335.26

Transmission
line

Positive sequence
component

9.78+j110.23

System

Samples per cycle

40

3 Phase Fault

Fault transition
times(s)

[4/50 6/50]

Circuit
Breaker

Circuit breaker
transition times

[5/50]

Fig.2 Ground fault connection.

Fig. 2 shows the SLG fault condition at a phase line. The
fault location is at m distance from substation A and (1-m)
distance from substation B where m is in per unit (p.u.).
Fault resistance, RF, fault voltage, VF and m distance are
unknown parameters. When a fault occurs at any point at
the transmission line, currents from both substations will
flow toward the fault point and return back to the
substations through the ground path. So, fault current, IF is
the combination of current from both substations.
Where
m = 1, 2... Line length (in per unit)
Z1 = Positive sequence impedance
Z2 = Negative sequence impedance
Z0 = Zero sequence impedance
VA = Phase to ground voltage seen from substation A
VA1 = Positive sequence component of fault voltage
VA2 = Negative sequence component of fault voltage
VA0 = Zero sequence component of fault voltage
VF = Phase to ground fault voltage
IA0 = Zero sequence component of phase current from
substation A
IB0 = Zero sequence component of phase current from
substation B
ZF = Fault impedance
Phase to ground fault voltage, VF seen from both
substations can be written as

(4)
(5)
Zero sequence components of phase currents from both
substations are equal to

(6)
(7)
Applying for m

(8)
The above formula gives us the Fault Location.

VII. FIGURES AND TABLES

Wavelet decomposition is then performed on these signals

to obtain approximate and detailed coefficients. A carrier of
DB5, level 3 is selected as mother wavelet during the
decomposition.

Fig.3 Simulink model of the transmission line system

Simulink model shown in (Fig.3) is simulated by selecting a
certain fault at a particular location on the transmission line.
The current transients for AG fault are shown below for
illustration.

Fig.6 plots of approximate & detailed coefficients.

The obtained coefficients of current signals are then
analyzed to detect the occurrence of fault. Fault index value
is computed also tabulated, and if it is above certain
threshold value, Fault is detected. Type of fault is also
classified depending on those values.
Table2. Fault index values during the Fault.

Sl.
no
1

Fig.4 current transients for AG fault.

2
3
4
5
6
7

Fault
No
Fault
AG
AG
BCG
BCG
ABCG
ABC

Locati
on(km)
100

Fa

Fb

Fc

811.5420

821.0166

825.4090

80
120
40
100
120
160

2.9939e+03
2.4388e+03
784.2861
812.5597
3.5366e+03
3.0800e+03

790.5371
825.1568
1.7355e+04
9.2597e+03
8.4395e+03
6.9897e+03

838.6455
836.4132
1.7452e+04
8.9472e+03
7.6783e+03
6.9897e+03

From table2 it can be observed that the fault index values of

faulty phases are quite high compared to those of healthy
phases. So a suitable threshold value is taken and if the fault
index value exceeds that value, then that particular phase is
considered to be faulty.
Fault location can be calculated using (8) .from the
results a max error of 12% and min error of 0.6% is noted in
location of fault.

Fig.5 current transients for AG fault.

The mother wavelet is used in db5 signal at level 3, Fault

index values were calculated using detailed coefficients
through the proposed algorithm as shown above. Fault index
values during and before the faults were tabulated and
suitable analysis is carried out, the discriminating factor
being the fault index values. This was done with the help of
the wavelet toolbox and also an m file.
Wavelet transform have future scope in analysing various
faults. They are a dependable tool and accurate tool for
detection also. It has high scope for future research as lot
must be done in this area. Fault analysis is a nascent area,
although lot of research has been done, further research
work can be carried out.
In this work, we have considered single-circuit
transmission line. This work can be extended for doublecircuit transmission lines also.
REFERENCES
[1] Subhransu Ranjan Samantaray, A new approach to Power system
protection using Time frequency analysis and Pattern recognition, 2007.

Fig.7 Result window displaying the fault index values, Fault

type and location.
In the result window shown above are the fault index values
before the fault occurrence and the fault index values during
the fault. These values are analyzed and necessary fault
index value is calculated for detection of fault. A fault is
detected when the fault index value obtained is higher than
the proposed threshold value. Depending upon the values
of fault indices of three phases fault type is classified.
VIII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE OF WORK
The SIMULINK model of proposed transmission line
system has been developed and fault analysis has been
carried out. Different waveforms were observed using
SIMULINK. The transient signals have been analysed using
wave menu in wavelet toolbox.1D wavelet is selected for
this purpose. The transient signals were synthesized using
Discrete Wavelet transform (DWT). Approximate &
Detailed coefficients were obtained. M file was developed
for calculating fault index values and also obtaining
respective plots.

[2] Shaik Abdul Gafoor, P.V. Ramana Rao, Wavelet based fault detection,
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and Energy conference, PEC, 2006.
[

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