Remote monitoring of surface current over insulators

This paper presents a system to monitor the surface current over transmission line insulators. This gives an early warning for flashover when this current reaches a certain criteria. This ensures the continuity of the supply and minimum risk of line to ground fault occurrence. The system does not need any contact with the transmission line as it uses an antenna to detect the current. An optical transmission system is used to transmit the signal to the control centre. Prototype circuit diagrams have been designed. A neural network has been used as pattern recognition to identify the partial discharge waveform. Simulation results are reported, together with discussion of various problems.