Distance Protection Based on Artificial Neural

Networks
Libor Straka, Ghaeth Fandi
Czech Technical University in Prague
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Electrical Power Engineering
Technick 2, 166 27 Prague 6, Czech Republic
strakli1@fel.cvut.cz, fandigha@fel.cvut.cz

Abstract In this paper we present a new approach to

determine the presence of fault in near-real time conditions and
to determine the fault existence in the given line length based on
the implementation of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in the
transmission lines, of an electrical power system.
Keywords Electrical Power Systems, Power Transmission
lines, Fault detection, Fault classification, Fault distance, Artificial
Neural Networks
I. INTRODUCTION (Heading 1)
An electrical power system is considered to be a sum of all
its components necessary for generation, transmission and
distribution of electric power. As in all other systems, there
exists a risk that any of the system components will cease
partly or fully to perform their designated function leading to
faults in the system. In order to maintain the system stability
and to improve its reliability it is imperative to have an early
fault detection and rapid equipment isolation mechanism
present in the system. Faults in power systems occur due to
external (e.g. weather conditions) or internal (e.g. aging of
insulation resulting in its breakdown) influences. The aim of
protective devices is to ensure that an occurring fault will have
minimum possible impact on the function and stability of the
entire system. Therefore, the protection system properties and
setup have a crucial importance for a safe and reliable
operation of electrical power systems.
In this paper, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)
algorithms is used for fault detection and classification.
II. METHODOLOGY
The first stage of the model depends on four neural
networks one for each phase of the transmission line and the
fourth neural network is for ground consideration. Based on the
first stage, the second stage of the algorithm will decide which
ANN has to be activated since we have designed the algorithm
for four different networks of fault distance detection.
We have the following neural networks for the suggested
structure of faults:
x neural network for the first phase A: ANNA,
x neural network for the second phase B: ANNB,
x neural network for the third phase C: ANNC,
x neural network for the ground the fourth (I0,V0) G,
ANNG.
All of these function in relation to every phase and the
fourth network which is the ground, function in relation to (i -
v), which have been calculated. [6], [7]
Input signals are voltages and currents for each phase, the
output signals are logical values (1 or 0).
Input signals are processed by data processing unit and it is
then used as inputs for neural networks, which decides the type
of fault:
Ua
Fault Classifier

ANNA
Various applications with ANN have already been UA
Ia

implemented in electrical power systems [1], [2]. ANN is an UB Ub

ANNB
UC Ib
accurate, reliable and robust tool for fault detection, therefore U0 Data
processing
Fault Type

ANN based relaying algorithm will not be seriously affected by IA

IB
Unit Uc
Ic ANNC
variations in system conditions. IC
I0 Uo
ANNG
Neural Networks are useful for power system applications Io

because they can be trained with off-line data. The specialty of

ANN based distance protection is that it does not explicitly use
the impedance information as the basis of information. Rather
it learns from examples presented to it during training. [3]
Hence, faults where detected by means of ANN, using current
and voltage inputs.
Fig. 1. Block scheme of ANN
III. DESCRIPTION OF SIMULATIONS USING THE STUDIED
MODEL
Simulation studies show that the proposed technique is able
to distinguish the fault type very accurately and to calculate the
fault distance with a response time for fault classification in

978-1-4799-3807-0/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

less than 5 ms. This technique has also succeeded in detecting Hidden Layer
1
all fault types under all system conditions with 100 percent
Input Layer
accuracy, and it is suitable for real time applications and grid 1
2
automation [1], [2]. U
3
Output Layer
The inputs for this proposed algorithm are current and 4 0: No Fault
voltage phasors measured at the line ends which that are 1: Fault Detected

sampled at the rate of 9600 Hz without the involvement of a I

2
n -1
moving data window, thus allowing us to sample the input
signal data as a string of data. n

We studied overhead lines with parameters l = 100 km,

rated voltage V = 230 kV and frequency 50 Hz, Source 1 and Fig. 3. Input, hidden and output layer of ANN
source 2 are the same, where (phase difference between
source 1 and source 2) = 30 degrees, with source 1 leading,
other parameters are listed in table [1]. MATLAB Simulink B. Training and testing ANN
was used for computation, we got data for voltage from Bus We trained and tested ANN and changed the Hidden layer
and data for current from transmission line, all datas are (that is number of layers and number of neuron for every
processed by the Data Processing Unit (DPU). The output of Hidden layer), parameters like active functions was also
DPU is used as input for Fault Classifier. The Line model for changed. These changes were made many times to get the best
the distributed parameters is shown in fig.2: possible working of the network. And then we choose
appropriate ANN for every phase.
BUS A BUS B
100 Km Thereafter, we prepared data for training. Data for 630
Currents
different fault cases which include changes in kind, place,
Source Source angle and resistance of faults were prepared.
230 KV 230 KV
Voltages Data
Fault
Processing Fault Type
Classifier
Unit TABLE II. ANN TESTING
L1-G, L2-G, L3-G, L1-L2-G, L1-L3-G, L2-L3-
Kind of fault
G, L1-L2, L1-L3, L2-L3, L1-L2-L3-G
Fig. 2. Model of network Place of fault
5, 15, 20, 45, 75, 85, 100
on line (km)
Angle of fault impedance
0, 60, 90
TABLE I. LINE PARAMETERS ()
Resistance of faults () 0, 60, 80
Transmission line positive and negative sequence
0.035 + j0.4241
impedance (/km)
And for testing we prepared 1120 different fault cases
which also include changes in kind, place, angle and resistance
Transmission line zero sequence impedance
(/km)
0.3003 + j1.1434 of faults.

Source positive sequence impedance () 3.0135 + j43.095 TABLE III. ANN TRAINING
L1-G, L2-G, L3-G, L1-L2-G, L1-L3-G, L2-L3-
Source zero sequence impedance () 3.0135 + j43.095 Kind of fault
G, L1-L2, L1-L3, L2-L3, L1-L2-L3-G
Place of fault on line
4, 35, 55, 65, 80, 95, 100
Rated power (MVA) 500 (km)
Angle of fault
0, 25, 50, 90
impedance ()
Rated voltage (kV) 230
Resistance of faults () 0, 15, 50, 100

Load angle of source 1 (Degree) 0.0

Load angle of source 1 (Degree)
A. Structure of neural network used
These models use ANN for each phase (i, v) and for ground
(i0, v0) [5]. We use ANN feedback propagation method in
order for us to get the type of faults on the line , every ANN
has three layers, these are ; Input layer, Hidden layer and
Output layer.
The test results suggested that the structure of faults with
+ 30 the model using ANN was very successful in giving the type of
faults in all cases. This means that the suggested structure of
faults has enabled us to determine the fault type in 100 %
cases.
Training and testing of ANN is necessary to get the
best possible working of the model. Every ANN has been
trained using back propagation, including all kinds of faults
(single phase to ground, double phase to ground, phase to
phase and three phase short circuit). Using the symbols L for
number of phase and G for the ground. We get all symbols for
the various kinds of faults as follows:
L1-G, L2-G, L3-G, L1-L2-G, L1-L3-G, L2-L3-G, L1-L2,
L1-L3, L2-L3, L1-L2-L3-G
Shown in table [4] is the structure of the ANN model used
for training and testing the faults structure used.

TABLE IV. STRUCTURE OF ANN MODEL

Number of neuron in layers Logical Signals ANN for

output input phases
Output Hidden Input

1 14 2 1,0 UA, IA ANN-A

1 18 2 1,0 UB, IB ANN-B Fig. 5. Best validation performance for ANNB

1 17 2 1,0 UC, IC ANN-C

1 12 2 1,0 UG, IG ANN-G

Performance of the model is measured in terms of mean

squared error and shown in log scale. For each of the training,
validation and test sets the network ANN rapidly decreases.
The version of network ANN used gave best results on the
validation set after training.
Training and testing: when we trained and tested all the
ANN, we got these results as shown, the best validation
performance was done at the time of 10 minutes 49 seconds
for ANNA, 11 minutes 15 seconds for ANNB, 7 minutes
35 seconds for ANNC and 1 minute 15 seconds for ANNG.
Fig. 4, 5, 6 and 7 vividly illustrates this, with the various points
Fig. 6. Best validation performance for ANNC
shown.

Fig. 4. Best validation performance for ANNA Fig. 7. Best validation performance for ANNG

IV. RESULTS
At different parameters of faults the outputs of ANN show
responses of networks when the faults occurred, Fig. 8 shows
the time signals for voltage and current courses which was used
as input for fault classifier when the single line to -ground
fault L1-G happened .
The results show that the suggested structure of ANN
system is able to find out the type of fault correctly in all cases.
 Ua (pu) 1 2 2 V. CONCLUSION

Ub (pu)

Uc (pu)
0 0 0 We have shown a model technique for the automation of
-1
0 100 200
-2
0 100 200
-2
0 100 200
fault identification in overhead power transmission lines. The
t (ms) t (ms) t (ms) presented method using ANN, works by comparing input and
5 5 5
output signal, for detection of fault. We prepared 630 cases for
Ia (pu)

Ib (pu)

Ic (pu)
0 0 0
training and 1120 cases for testing with changing number of
-5 -5 -5
0 100 200 0 100 200 0 100 200 hidden layers, indicating fast response time for the detection of
t (ms) t (ms) t (ms) fault. Extensive studies indicate that the model is able to
5 1
classify different faults correctly and rapidly and its
Uo (pu)

Io (pu)

0 0
-5 -1
0 100 200 0 100 200
t (ms) t (ms)
Fig. 8. Time signals for voltage and current courses for L1-G fault, lF = 50
km, F = 50, RF = 30 , t = 60 ms. Outputs from simulink are inputs to fault
classifier
The network output for the single line to ground fault L1 -
G at distance of 80 km are presented in Fig. 9. At the time of
60 ms when the fault classifier changes logical output from 0 to
1, the sequential fault is identified correctly at the phase, where
the fault occurred.
In this work, we focused on the verification of ANN used
for protection in overhead lines .Nowadays the neural networks
are very famous theme of research in electrical engineering. In
this case the model outputs have a binary form for different
type of faults and these outputs could be input to control
devices. The investigated device could be used for protection in
electrical power grids. The scope of future research will be a
comparison of fault location by using ANN and standard
methods for overhead lines protection in transmission as well
as distribution systems [8]. Lines will be divided into separate
elements, which will be compared to accurate fault detection.
In all line elements we will use ANN algorithms. And all the
line parameters will be sampled and the place where the
minimal error occurred will be the line of fault. These results
will be compared with distance protection and others.
performance is not affected by the changing network
conditions. Hence, the output of this research can be used as
digital input for another program because we have different
types of faults for numerous cases under different conditions
with short response time and can be used for further research in
the development of digital relay protection and transmission
network automation and we have described the faults on each
phase of a power transmission line, future research should
describe the distance of fault using the results obtained.
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direction estimation using artificial neural network, International
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[4] M. Hagh, K. Razi Tarafdar and H. Taghizadeh Fault classification and
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[5] M. 5. Sanaye-Pasand and H. Khorashadi-Zadeh Transmission line fault
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Fig. 9. Output of fault classifier for L1-G fault, lF = 50 km, F = 50, RF =

30 , t = 60 ms