Ultra wide band VHF/UHF radio interferometer system for detecting partial discharge source

The electromagnetic (E-M) waves emitted from partial discharge (PD) generated by material defects in high-voltage electric power apparatus and facilities are broadband signals including VHF/UHF components. In this paper, the author proposes an ultra wide band VHF/UHF radio interferometer system (UWB-VURIS) for detecting PD source, which has been originally designed, constructed and tested. The system is based on the idea extracting the phase differences at different frequencies between a pair of the received E-M signals by the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and computing the arrival angle of the E-M waves emitted from PD source. It can be small-sized, more suitable for compact and portable systems. It is able to reduce the operating time at the measurement site because it is not needed to arrange many antennas at the many points. The indoor test results indicate that the UWB-VURIS is able to estimate the arrival angle of the E-M waves emitted from PD source.