A combined algorithm approach for PD location estimation using RF antennas

To locate the positions of partial discharge sources in free space at least four RF antennas are arranged in a suitable spatial geometry to detect the radiated electromagnet energy from the discharge. The time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) between the signals from each antenna are then used within multi-lateration equations to determine the position of the source. The iterative Hyperbolic Least Squares (HLS) method and the non-iterative Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) method are two common techniques used in the literature to solve the multi-lateration equations. This paper investigates the ability of combining MLE and HLS to improve location accuracy and maintain fast location computation time. To this end HLS, MLE and the combined MLE-HLS method are evaluated in terms of location accuracy and computation performance for three spatial antenna configurations, namely Square, Pyramidal and Trapezoidal arrangements. The location accuracies for each method are evaluated for theoretical TDOA values and also for the case when a finite sampling rate of 10G samples-per-second is considered; the latter is implemented through appropriate rounding up of TDOA values by one sample time. It is shown that MLE-HLS produces improved location accuracy compared with HLS and MLE for both theoretical and finite sampled TDOA values. In addition, it is shown that MLE-HLS improves significantly the computation time over the iterative HLS method.