Self-adaptive separation of multiple partial discharge sources based on optimized feature extraction of cumulative energy function

Partial discharge (PD) measurement is an effective tool for insulation condition assessment of high-voltage power equipment. The occurrence of multiple PD sources causes great difficulty on pattern recognition and failure risk assessment. This paper presents a self-adaptive PD separation algorithm based on optimized feature extraction of cumulative energy (CE) function. The CE functions in time domain (TCE) and frequency domain (FCE) are calculated from PD waveforms and their FFT spectrums, respectively. By using an oblique line to cross the CE curves, width features are extracted from the intersection points between them. Through the mathematical morphology gradient (MMG) operation, sharpness features are extracted to characterize the rise steepness of CE. It is found that the separation capability of width and sharpness are dependent on the pre-selected oblique line and the structure element length (SEL) in MMG, respectively. In order to obtain satisfactory PD separation results for various experimental conditions, a density-function based parameter is proposed to evaluate the separation capability, and the oblique line and SEL are optimized with the goal of maximizing the evaluation parameter. A clustering algorithm is adopted to discover different clusters in feature space and separate PD signals. The separation algorithm is examined with mixed PD current pulses and ultra-high-frequency (UHF) signals acquired from experiments in laboratory and on-site equipment. The results indicate that the self-adaptive separation method is immune to the change of experimental conditions, and is effective for separating mixed PD signals.