UHF Moore Fractal Antennas for Online GIS PD Detection

A sensor for a Moore fractal antenna was designed to detect partial discharge (PD) in gas-insulated substations. This worked at an ultrahigh frequency. First, the multifrequency characteristics of this antenna were analyzed and ANSYS HFSS was used to simulate the Moore fractal antenna and the Hilbert fractal antenna for comparison. The results show that the Moore fractal antenna had good directivity and omnidirectional radiation features. We then developed physical models for them according to the simulation results. The two antennas were tested using a vector network analyzer. The results show that the Moore fractal antenna had more frequency bands than the Hilbert fractal antenna. The PD was tested in the laboratory and detected by the Moore fractal antenna and the Hilbert fractal antenna. A comparison of the measured results showed that the proposed antenna was promising for online PD detection applications.