Research on Series Arc Fault Detection Based on Higher-Order Cumulants

At present, the detection methods on series arc faults are mainly based on the current of the main circuit, which probably results in misjudgment because of the singularity of the normal working current in a nonlinear load. What’s worse, is the arc fault characteristic in the small power branch is easily ignored in the current of the main circuit, which leads to missed judgment. To solve these problems, a detection method based on coupling signal acquisition and higher-order cumulant identification is presented, through the electromagnetic coupling mechanism of high frequency current. By analyzing the coupling signal of the high-frequency current and using the higher-order cumulant algorithm during arcing process, the kurtosis of the coupling signal is calculated. In this paper, the unified threshold value on the kurtosis in various conditions is obtained. The results show that the novel method can be effectively used to detect and identify the series arc faults.