A tool positioning system of an unmanned aerial vehicle that is mountable relative to a power line to monitor a component of the line. The tool positioning system includes a displacement module having a first member mountable to one side of a body of the unmanned aerial vehicle, a second member movable vertically relative to the first member on the side of the body, and a tool holder pivotably coupled to the second member and couplable to a tool. The tool holder is movable relative to the body to mount the tool to or around the component.

A system for monitoring the state of a cable, includes a plurality of transferometry devices capable of injecting a test signal into the cable and measuring a signal being propagated in the cable, the transferometry devices being positioned along the cable so as to break down the cable into successive sections, the system comprising a control member capable of communicating with the transferometry devices and configured so as to perform at least one transferometry test consisting in injecting a test signal into the cable by means of a first transferometry device and measuring the test signal after its propagation in the cable by means of a second transferometry device different from the first device, the system comprising a post-processing member capable of communicating with the transferometry devices and configured to compare the measured signal to a reference signal to deduce therefrom an indicator of degradation of the section of cable disposed between the first transferometry device and the second transferometry device.

Examples of fault location in a power transmission line connecting a first and a second terminal is described. In an example, arrival times of a first peak, a second peak, and a third peak of a travelling wave detected from measurements carried out at the first and second terminals is detected. A rise time associated with the first peak of the travelling wave is calculated. One of a first half and a second half of the power transmission line is identified, as having a fault, based on a comparison of the rise time. One of a first segment, a second segment, a third segment, and a fourth segment of the power transmission line is identified as having the fault. Length of the power transmission line is estimated. The fault location is estimated based on identification of one of the first, second, third, and fourth segments as having the fault.

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for high-speed falling conductor protection in electric distribution systems. An example method may include calculating, by a processor, at a first time, and for each phase, one or more first impedance values associated with one or more terminals of a transmission line. The example method may also include calculating, by the processor, at a second time, and for each phase, one or more second impedance values associated with the one or more terminals. The example method may also include determining, by the processor, that a rate of change of an impedance of the one or more terminals is greater than a threshold rate of change. The example method may also include determining, by the processor and based on the determination that the rate of change of the one or more terminals is greater than the threshold rate of change, that the transmission line has broken. The example method may also include sending, by the processor and based on the determination that the transmission line has broken, a signal to de-energize the transmission line before a broken conductor reaches a ground surface.

Systems and methods are provided herein for improving distance protection in transmission lines. Such systems and methods may involve receiving one or more current and voltage inputs, and determining, based on the one or more current and voltage inputs, one or more current and voltage phasors, wherein the one or more current and voltage phasors are determined using a short window phasor estimation. Such systems and methods may also involve determining, within a single power cycle and based on the one or more current and voltage phasors, a fault in a transmission line. Such systems and methods may also involve sending, to a distance protection element and based on the determination that the fault exists, a signal to clear the fault in the transmission line, and clearing the fault in the transmission line.

Distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems and methods for monitoring electrical power distribution transformers and locating failing/failed/malfunctioning transformers from humming signals indicative of a transformer's operational integrity and are advantageously detected/analyzed via DFOS mechanisms.

A system comprises a set of power conversion components powered by a power line system, and a time domain reflectometry apparatus coupled to the power line system. The time domain reflectometry apparatus is configured to acquire a reflection signal that results from reflection of an incident signal injected on the power line system, compute a difference signal based on the reflection signal and a baseline signal, and detect a fault in the set of power conversion components based on the difference signal and a fault pattern.

In the field of fault location within a power transmission network, a method of determining a fault location in a power transmission conduit includes: (a) sampling at an original sampling frequency a signal propagating through the power transmission conduit to establish a first data set including a plurality of sampled signal characteristics; (b) interpolating the first data set to establish a second data set including an increased number of signal characteristics whereby the second data set has an equivalent sampling frequency higher than the original sampling frequency; (c) identifying a fault wave signal within the second data set; and (d) utilising the propagation characteristics of the fault wave signal to determine the origin of the fault wave signal within the power transmission conduit.

Systems and methods of determining fault location on a DC microgrid feeder need to be extremely fast to protect the circuit breaker and converter-source components. This disclosure develops a seminal theoretical foundation for fast fault location on a DC feeder that uses only single-ended local measurements in time domain. The theory provides a closed-form deterministic solution for fault location, making the resulting fault location method agnostic to system-topology and immune to fault resistance. The theory is developed with ideal DC voltage sources and is extended to practical converter-sources. The performance of the resulting method is demonstrated by simulating a DC feeder with converters connected at both ends, modeled in PSCAD (power systems computer-aided design).

Improvements in the functioning of a line-mounted device to calculate a direction to a fault during current transformer (CT) saturation are disclosed herein. The line-mounted device may determine a load direction using voltage and current zero-crossings and a power system frequency before the fault condition. The line-mounted device may determine a fault direction in relation to the direction to the load after calculating and removing direct current (DC) components of a sampled current signal using valid sample pairs obtained during unsaturated regions of peaks of the sampled current signal. The line-mounted device may indicate the direction to the fault. A system of line-mounted devices may be used to determine a faulted section of a power system using indications of fault direction.