IoT ENABLED REAL TIME UNDERGROUND CABLE FAULT DETECTION AND LOCATION IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM

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Published Sep 15, 2021
Eldhose K A

Abstract

The use of underground power cables is expanding nowadays due to the safety considerations and enhanced reliability in the distribution and transmission systems. Despite these benefits, underground cables are susceptible to various faults, including open circuits, short circuits, and earth faults which are very difficult to locate and the entire cable must be pulled out of the ground to verify and repair the faults. The objective of our project is to design and fabricate an underground power cable fault detection and location identification system that distinguishes and locates wide varieties of fault in underground power transmission cables from the base station in real time by employing Internet of Things (IoT).

 The proposed system executes real-time monitoring of the entire underground power system at different power distribution points which are computed as a node from where current and voltage data sets are fed into a web server for the analysis of the entire system as shown in the figure1 [1]. A prototype is modelled with a set of resistors symbolizing cable length in meters (1 ohm/m) and fault creation is done manually by a set of switches in series and parallel for demonstration of different faults at different locations (Figure 2). This prototype uses the base theory of Ohm's law which states that when a voltage is applied at the supply end, current would vary depending on the location of the fault in the cable [2]. 

Novel ideas to restrain the present inefficacy of detecting an exact location of an open circuit fault is accomplished by the use of capacitive current in cable lines by employing parallel capacitors. The proposed model mainly uses current sensors, ATmega328P Arduino Uno microcontroller and ESP8266 NodeMCU Wi-Fi module [1-3]. Internet of Things is incorporated to send the cable line data within a fraction of seconds to the webpage using HTTP protocol. When there is a fault, the current changes accordingly and thus its corresponding voltage value is transmitted to an ADC, which generates precise digital data that the programmed Arduino would exhibit in LCD. This data is fed to the WIFI module of esp826 NodeMCU . The system continuously delivers the conditions of the transmission cable into a webpage and then to the officials in electricity control board. Any deviation from the normal values will be considered as a fault and automatic monitoring, analysing and recording can be done efficiently through this method. The microcontroller codes the approximate location of fault, while the IP address at each node denotes the fault has occurred at that locality [3]. Thus, this proposed methodology provides a reduction in time to locate a fault and thus repairing the electricity system as soon as possible.

The simulation of the proposed system is developed using Proteus software. The simulation for any number of nodes will be a replication of the simulation done here by considering a single node as shown in figure 3. This project is a humble effort to benefit a reduction in time to locate and detect a fault in the field and quick fix to reactivate the power system, thus increased performance, and reduction in the operating expenses. This proposed method can be utilized for the wide area control of transmission lines easily. This project idea can be further enhanced by checking the pre-fault current conditions by maintaining the previous record of faults in a database and locating the fault conditions in advance.

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Fig.1. Block diagram

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Fig.2. Cable Representation

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Fig.3. Simulation of proposed system

How to Cite

K A, E. (2021). IoT ENABLED REAL TIME UNDERGROUND CABLE FAULT DETECTION AND LOCATION IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM. SPAST Abstracts, 1(01). Retrieved from https://spast.org/techrep/article/view/399
Abstract 530 |

Article Details

Keywords

IoT, Internet of Things, Power cables

References
[1] Shraddha Shelar, Amruta Chabukwar, Mohini Yadav, Swapnil Narkhede,“Distance calculation for underground cable fault”, International Journal of Advance Engineering and Research Development, Volume 7, Issue 06, June -2020.
http://ijaerd.com/papers/finished_papers/Distance%20Calculation%20for%20Underground%20Cable%20Fault.pdf
[2] Ali Raza, Abdeldjabar Benrabah, Thamer Alquthami, Muhammad Akmal,”A Review of Fault Diagnosing Methods in Power Transmission Systems”, Appl. Sci. 2020, 10, 1312.
https://doi.org/10.3390/app10041312
[3] Sushil Chavhan, Vaibhav Barsagade, Abhijit Dutta, Shubhangi Thakre,” Fault Detection in Power Line Using Wireless Sensor Network”, IPASJ International Journal of Electrical Engineering (IIJEE), Volume 3, Issue 3, March2015.
https://www.ipasj.org/pabstract_Share.php?pid=IIJEE-2015-03-20-2
Section
GE3- Computers & Information Technology