Robust Faulted Line-Section Location for Distribution Networks Based on Normalized Quantile Hausdorff Distance

This paper proposes a robust faulted line-section location method based on the Normalized Quantile Hausdorff Distance (NQHD) algorithm for detecting single-phase earth faults in distribution networks. The faulted line section is determined according to the characteristic differences between the zero-sequence currents on the faulted and healthy line sections. Specifically, the zero-sequence currents at the two ends of a healthy line section are highly similar to each other, while such is generally not the case on a faulted line section. By using quantile and robust normalized approaches, the NQHD algorithm can disregard extremes or outliers while also providing a normalized scaling across various scenarios. Thus, it can be applied to calculate the robust waveform similarity of zero-sequence current waveforms at the two ends of different line sections for identifying reliably the faulted line section even under the interference of outliers. The results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed method in detecting single-phase earth faults with various fault conditions. Comparative tests with the existing methods confirm the advantageous robustness of the proposed method against the impacts of outliers and noises.