An implementation of a hybrid intelligent tool for distribution system fault diagnosis

The common fault in distribution systems due to line outages consists of single-line-to-ground (SLG) faults, with low or high fault impedance. The presence of arcing is commonplace in high impedance SLG faults. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) based techniques have been introduced for low/high impedance fault diagnosis in ungrounded distribution systems and high-impedance fault diagnosis in grounded distribution systems. So far no tool has been developed to identify, locate and classify faults on grounded and ungrounded systems. This paper describes an integrated package for fault diagnosis in either grounded or ungrounded distribution systems. It utilizes rule-based schemes as well as artificial neural networks (ANN) to detect, classify and locate faults. Its application on sample test data as well as field test data are reported in the paper.