Robust Novel Indicator To Distinguish between an Inter-Turn Short Circuit Fault and Load Unbalance in PMSG

In the aim to increase the reliability of the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG), this paper proposes an efficient symmetrical component-based method to detect and accurately diagnose an incipient inter-turn short circuit (ITSC) fault in the PMSG without any confusion with a load unbalance. In fact, the existence of a negative sequence voltage component in the PMSG may be due to ITSC faults or to load unbalance, which creates confusion and affects the accuracy of the fault detection. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel robust indicator capable of distinguishing without any ambiguity, an ITSC fault from a load unbalance in the machine. Hence, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate the behavior and the effectiveness of the novel indicator able to discriminate between the two operating modes, through original thorough analytical and simulation studies, validated experimentally on a real PMSG.