Review and recent developments in DC arc fault detection

This paper presents a brief review of recent dc arc fault modeling and detection methods. The goal is to examine state-of-the-art technologies and to identify future research and development needs of dc arc fault protection in modern dc networks. For dc arc modeling, the focus is given to external characteristic equations which model the arc with electrical parameters. Moreover, models of the random high frequency components in arc current and their applications will be reviewed and discussed. Then, selected dc arc fault detection techniques are reviewed and compared. Preliminary results from a robustness study for a wavelet based detection algorithm under noisy environments are presented. The status of a draft SAE standard being developed on 270 Vdc arc fault detection and validation tests for aircraft is briefly discussed.