IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 10, No.

2, April 1995

62 1

REMOVAL OF DC-OFFSET IN CURRENT WAVEFORMS USING DIGITAL MIMIC FILTERING

Gabriel Benmouyal Member

1800montke Ste-Julie, Varennes, Quebec, Canada, J3X- 1S 1

mQ

AbstrPd: This paper presents a theoretical investigation of

the capability of popular digital filters used in relaying applications to suppress DC offset in current waveforms over a broad range of time constants as encountered on real power systems. First, three mathematical performance indices are inaodUCed to be able to compare filters on the Same basis. Then the concept of the FIR type of digital mimic filter is described. It is shown that, for filters exhibiting a null response at frequency zero on their frequency response, the addition of a digital mimic circuit, tuned to the middle of the range of time constants to be suppressed, will almost completely eliminate the effect of an exponentially decaying component. Moreover, this is possible without sacrificing the original response speed, although it increases susceptibility to noisy components. I<evwor&: digital relaying, relaying filters, suppression of DC offset effects, protective relays It is a Well established fXt that lint? relays have a tendency to overreach in the presence of DC offset components in faultcurrent waveforms. In some relaying applications, like line relaying or fault location, the decaying component therefore has to be removed from these waveforms. A number of techniques have been put forward to deal with such situations [3-6, 9, 111 but So far no theOfetiCd Study has ever been made (0 evaluate the e f f ~ t i V ~ nOf s e these techniques. Nor has any mathematical performanceindex or figure of merit been devised to characterize this Of The purpose of this paper is to Provide the missing information. Mimic circuits have proven to be effective in both electromechanicaland static technology. This paper shows that by using the exact digital replica of a mimic circuit, the exponentiallydecaying component of a current waveform can be removed for a broad class of filters.

Definitio

r f -

Based on the two test waveforms defied in appendix 1 a fist 9 performance index PI0 with respect to a filter DC offset removal capability and a PXtkukU time COnStant 7 iS defined

as f 0 k W S :
a) apply a sinewave step function xl(t) at the input of the filter and record the magnitude of output waveform yl(t) xl(t) = sin 2x 60 t (1) b) apply, at the input of the same filter, a worst-case waveform of the form: x2(t) = cos 2x 60 t - e; and record the magnitude Y2(t) at the filter output.

(2)

yl(t) corresponds to the condition when there is no DC offset present, whereas y2(t) corresponds to a worst-case condition when there exists a maximum DC offset. me fist performance index of the filter will be computed as the valueof the integral

PM r 1 =

where represents an arbitrary integral number of cycles. In die case of the present study, this number has' been chosen arbitrarily to be three. Obviously, if the defined PI0 is close or equal to zero, it can be concluded that DC offset has no effect on the filter output. The first performance index integrates both the transient and the steady state responses of the filter, which might be seen as a shortcoming because the response during the transient state could be considered irrelevant. For this reason, PI0 will not be used in the present study and a second performance index PI1 will he defined. It should be home in mind that before y2(t) settles to the 94 431-7 m D A recommended and approved steady-state value of 1, it will normally oscillate around this magnitude. The steady state will therefore be considered by the IEEE Power System Relaying Committee of the IEEE Power Engineering Society for presentation a t attained as soon as y2(t) exceeds one at time TO, whereupon t h e IEEE/PES 1994 Summer Meeting, San Francisco, CA, integration of the difference starts. PI1 is ConSXlUently defined July 24 - 28, 1994. Manuscript submitted December as: 15, 1993; made available for printing May 3, 1994. NT
(4)

I' :

[yl(t) - yz(01~dt

(3)

While a value of PI0 close to zero indicates that a filter is completely immune to DC offset both in the transient and the 0885-8977/95/$04.00 0 1994 IEEE

622

steady state, a similar value of PI1 denotes a filter free of oscillation in the steady state. A value of PI1 close to zero does not allow, however, the speed of the filter to be deduced. Therefore, PI1, as a figure of merit, is useful when comparing two filters as it provides an indication of the filter providing the most efficient DC removal capability. In order to assess the inherent merit of a filter, a third performance index PI2 will then be defined. It is equal to the percentage of maximum overshoot in the output magnitude y2(t) and corresponds to the next mathematical expression: PI:! ( ~ ) = ( M ~ [ y 2 ( t ) - l ]100 )* (5) There exists a direct relation between this third performance index and the potential overreach that a filtering system could yield: a PI2 of 15% for example could results in a maximum overreach of 115% if the first zone of a distance relay was set at 100% of the line impedance. In this study, an anti-aliasing filter is not emulated because its effect on the response to the testing waveforms, besides a delayed output, is assumed to be negligible as shown in appendix 3 of the paper. Variations in DC offset time constant Both PI1 and PI2 can be computed for a particular value of the DC offset time constant r. Since z depends on the power system configuration at the moment of a fault and, also, on the location of that fault on a line, this time constant should be considered as variable. An important consideration to be addressed, therefore, is the sensitivity of the filter as z varies. As a figure of merit of this sensitivity, the average of the performance indices, whether of type 1 or type 2, is computed over a range of time constants from 0.5 to 5 cycles as in PI, (0.5)
AV( PI, ) =

Although the frequency response of the filter (see Fig. 11) shows an infinite attenuation at zero frequency, the filter will nonetheless show some oscillation on the waveform magnitude at the output. The longer the DC offset time constant, the greater the filter immunity, however.

I {

,..y'-.., ! .. . : .../
/

.........

.......

..........

._.. .......c -.__

:h
S A W

Fig. 1. Time responseof a full-cycle DFT filter to the test waveform Table 1 gives the values of the two performance indices, PI1 and PI2, when the time constant r varies from 0.5 to 5 cycles.

+
r= 1

PI,( z

(i= 1 or 2)

(6)

6 ion to a full-cvcle DFT filter Full-cycle DIT filters are among the most popular in relaying. the For a current waveform i(t) = A sin (cot+@), fundamentalfrequencycomponents are provided by [ 1,2]

Performance of tvoe I least-sauares-fittine (LSF)

filter
Assuming that the current equation i(t) consists of an exponentially decaying component, fundamental, and second to fifth harmonics, as in

and the magnitude of the waveform is

A = V - i 5 7

Figure 1 shows the filter's time responses when the test functions of Appendix 1 are applied at the input of the fullcycle DFT filter. In this figure, as in the following tests, the filter has been subjected to three testing waveforms: a) a sinewave corresponding to Eq. 1. b) two cosine waveforms with maximum DC offset as in Eq. 2. Two extreme values of decay rates for the DC components have been used: 0.5 and 5 cycles at rated frequency . In this example, as for all filters referred to in this paper, a rate of 12 sampleskycle is used. In Eys. 7&8, y is therefore equal to 30'.

(10) then the equations for this LSF filter can be derived by working out the least-squares solution of a set of equations representing the value of i(t) at different samples of the chosen data window. For a data window equal to a full cycle, Fig. 2 [see Ref.1, Fig. 4.10 and Ref. 2, Fig. 3.171 represents the well known frequency response of the LSF filter. Figure 3 shows the time responses of the filter when the above specified three test functions are applied at the input. Analysis of Fig. 3 indicates that, contrary to common belief, the DC removal capability of this type of filter is not very g c d , less performing in fact than the full-cycle Fourier filter. This could have been predicted by analyzing the filter's frequency response, which shows non-zero attenuation at zero frequency. From a practical point of view, it turns out that this filter does not remove the exponentially decaying component modeled in the original curve equation.
n=l

i(t) = A e-:

.x
n=S

Bn sin ( n u t + 8" )

623

Fig. 2. Frequency response of LSF filter.

1.4

Fig. 4. Frequency response of type I1 LSF filter.

1-

.'

-lBYCNJhmtMBmPFuNmoN
- .. ~EIPWSE "ZSIZSFWXON. m
QIOTLE WSET
I

........
I

RKWONSE m SINE SKPPUNCnON ..._FSSWNSE TO COSINE SIPP+U"ON

1O.bCYCLE OFRET
I

p e v o N S E ~ c o m ( B S ~ F l u " O N + I C Y ~ O ~ E T

nEx"e m cosm SIEP.PV"ON

X Y ~ E nmm

SAMPLES 30

0 -

.........................
10

SAMPLES

30

40

..

60

Fig. 3. Time responses of type I LSF filter. Table 2 gives the values of the two performance indices as T varies from 0.5 to 5 cycles. Table 2. PI of LSF filter of t

Fig. 5. Time responses to test functions of modified LSF filter. Table 3 2800 x 1595 x 1W6 362 x 115 x 46 x loe6

2.80
1.81

0.74
0.39

0.24
0.16

1.0032

22 x 10-6
32.86

Performance of half-cvcle window DFT filter The half-cycle Fourier filters introduced by Phadke et al. [5] offer the advantage that they reduce the time response of the full-cycle Fourier filter by a factor of two. The main shortcoming of this filter is its lack of immunity to DC offset components. This is illustrated in Fig. 6, which shows the filter's time responses to the test functions, and also in Table 4 representing the performance indices. Performance of cosine filters Cosine filters are derived from full-cycle Fourier filters [l I]. The components of the fundamental are obtained by processing the waveform twice using Eq. 6. First, the waveform is processed normally; then it is delayed by one quarter of a cycle to obtain an orthogonal wavefonn and again processed. The frequency response of this filter is shown in Fig. 7. Figure 8 shows the filter's time responses to the test waveforms. From a practical point of view, cosine filters clearly have an outstanding capability to remove DC offset influence. Furthermore, contrary to the type 2 LSF filters, this

Performance of tvDe 1 LSF filter 1

If the exponential in Eq. 10 is expanded using the two first terms of a Taylor series, a new filter [41 can be derived which
corresponds to the fitting of the next curve:

In this equation, the previously exponentially decaying DC component becomes the sum of a constant and a linearly decayingramp. The frequency response of this new filter is shown in Fig. 4. This time, the response at DC frequency is zero but a general amplification of the higher-frequency components has taken Place. Analysis of Fig. 5, sbowing the filter's time responses to test functions, indicates that this filter practically eliminates the DC offset component over the range of time constants tested. Table 3 gives the values of the two performance indices for z varying from 0.5 to 5 cycles.

624 is not at the expense of the frequency response, as may be seen also from the performance indices for this filter in Table 5 .
....
RESPONSE TO SINE STEP-FIINcI1ON RESPONSE mCOSME SlCRI"ON + 0 . S - C Y a E OFFSET RESWNSE m COSINE STEF-RNCTION + SCYCLE OFFSET 1.2

........ ...... - ..-. .......

.......
0 ~ :
0

" " k " ' ' b " " ~ " ' '
SAMPLES

. . . . . . . . . , . . . . , . . . . . . . . , . . . .I
10

Fig. 8. Time responses of cosine filter to test waveforms.

SAMPLES 30

40

SO

M)

Fig. 6. Time responses of half-cycle DFT filter to test waveforms.

I
I
1

Table 4. PI of half-cycle DFT filter.

'5 (in

cycles)

I
I 1
1

PI^
0.9824 3.3994

1
1 1

PI^ (%o)
49.7 79.0 100.0 108.1 112.6 115.3

I
I

7.7096 10.7462 12.8496 14.3624

I I

3
4

5
L

1 I

I 1 1

1.2

Figure 9 shows the time responses of the Kalman filter phasor magnitude estimator. It is clear from this figure that this type of filter will remove the effect of the DC offset almost entirely when its time constant corresponds to the one modeled in the state transition matrix (1 cycle). If this is not the case, however, the filter will be sensitivite to variations in the offset tune constant.

..... P E S Y O N S E c o s 1 ~ ~ s m . m c 1 ICYCZEOFR~ ~ + 10~

........ KESfONSETOC O S N STEP-FUNCIION J-CYCZEOFF3FT t

Fig. 7. Frequency response of cosine filter.

ce of Kalman filters were introduced by Girgis as candidates for voltage and current phasor estimation [6,71. In third-order Kalman filters, the exponentially decreasing DC offset is modeled for a particular time constant. IJsing the notations given in [lo], the test functions were applied at the input of a Kahnan filter ch,uacterized by 9 s . 12-14
0

. . . .Ib. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-S

Fig. 9. Time responses to test waveforms of Kalman filter. The same phenomenon is reflected by the values of the performance indices presented in Table 6.

0.866 -0.5 0 0.5 0.866 0

0
0

1 3

X :q $' ]

0.92

X3

%{ i]
0 0 1

(12)

H = [ 1.0 0 1.01.
0.0001

Q=[

0
0

0 0.0001
0

0
0.0001

R=[0.0001]

,i: P{

:]

(13) (14)

. . .

625

DC

offset " ~ v a l bv "c clrclut l A new digital " i c filter will now be defined which allows the removal of harmful oscillations that occur when DC offset is present a some ftlter inputs. t If a current waveform has to pass through a mimic circuit consisting of a resistance in series with an inductance or impedanceof the form

.. . .

This improved performance is therefore obrained at tbe expense of a slight increase in the sensitivity to off-nominal higherfrequency components because of the amplification in the overall frequency response.

K (1 + ~ 1 1 ) (15) then the exponentially decaying component at the output will vanish, provided its time constant is equal to 11 (as proven in Appendix 2). In this equation, 71 is expressed in number of samples. The sum of a gain and a differentiator circuit is represented by Eq. 15. The differenriator circuit, represented in the Laplace transform by s. can be emuhted digitally by the following FIR filter: (16) 1 2-1 Introducing Eq. 16 into Eq. 15, we eventually obtain K [(l +TI) - 71 i' ] (13

Fig. 10. Frequency response of mimic filter with time constant of 2 cycles.
I2

I
0.8

Here the gain K has to be set in such a way that, at rated frequency, the filter gain will be 1. At 60 Hz. the gain is given by the following expression Gain (60Hz)=

0.6

I K [(l +TI) -71 e-jCoTI = 1 1

(18)

0.4 0.2
0

Solving this equation for K, we obtain K2= 1 1 )2 ( [(l+.rl) - T~*COS/2*x*60_)lz+[~1*sin FP FP (19) where Fsamp is the sampling frequency. Figure 10 represents the frequency response of the mimic filter with a time constant of 2 cycles, which is in the middle of the range studied in this paper, 0.5 to 5 cycles. This is obviously a high-pass filter and its use in combination with any other type of filter should have the same impact as the one observed with the type I1 LSF filter, i.e. amplification of the higher-frequency components. Let us now analyze the influence of this mimic filter on the performance indices of two filters that show sensitivity to DC offser full- and half-cycle DFT filters. t t o a full-cvcle DFT

Fig. 11. Frequency response of a combined mimic and fullcycle DFF filter.

..I ,

4
0

I
.I

_ . . .b . . . i

.zb'

3b

'

'

4b

film
Prior to passing through the Fourier filter, the current signal is processed by the mimic filter represented by Eq.17. The overall frequency response of the filtering system is shown in Fig. 11. It should be bome in mind that an anti-aliasing filter exists in all digital relays. This filter is an ideal low-pass filter with cutoff frequency at half the sampling frequency. Therefore the overall frequency response as shown in Fig. 11, should be considered, for practical purposes, as not affected by the antialiasing filter Analysis of Fig. 12 shows that the effect of the mimic filter is to substantially reduce, if not entirely eliminate, the effect of the decaying DC component over the entire range of time constants tested. This is reflected in Table 7, where the performance index figures indicate a substantial, if not outstanding, improvement over the full range of time constants.

SAMPLES

*'.'.

Fig. 12. Time response of a full-cycle DFT and 2-cycle mimic filter combination .

626

Since the cosine filter showed a very good natural response to

1.2

DC offset, it is interesting to compare it with the others, a in s

Fig. 13. From this comparison of the time responses of the Fourier, Fourier+mimic, and cosine filters to a sine step function, it can be seen that the Fourier+mimic combination is slightly slower than a Fourier filter alone hut somewhat faster than the cosine filter.

I
. RUiPDNSE

To COElNE P r r P N N C C n O N
N m W

Q.5CYCLE 0 "

RESPONSE TO COSINE

ICICLE O F K C

RFSPONSE TO COSWE ETEP-NHCIION 1 I C I C L E OFFSET

-_

DfTFlLIER DFT + MIMIC FILTER

Fig. 15. Time responses of half-cycle DFT filter to test waveforms.

.......

. . COSINEFILTER . .

Ta

tion

10 SAMPLES

I5

20

Fig. 13. Comparison of DFT and cosine filter responses to step functions. Application of a mimic circuit to a half-cvcle DFT

filter
The frequency response for the same mimic filter used in combination with the half-cycle Fourier filter is shown in Fig. 14. When subjected to test waveforms, the half-cycle+mimic filter combination proves to be very effective in reducing the effects of DC offset components. This may be seen in Fig. 15, which shows that DC offset removal is complete when the time constant is equal to that implemented in the mimic filter. Table 8 gives the performance indices of the new combination, from which the same conclusion can be drawn. Modification of the state transition matrix proved to be a more effective way of improving this filter. The state transition matrix was therefore expanded to include an additional constant term and the previous time constant was changed to 0.5 cycles, as seen in Eqs. 20-22.
0.866 -0.5
0

0
0

0
0

0.846 0
0 1

x3
x4

H = [ 1.0 0 1.0 1.01.

R=[0.0001]

(21)

1
Fig. 14. Frequency response of a half-cycle D l T filter combined with a mimic filter. It should be borne in mind that further reduction of DC offset effects could be achieved by cascading more than one mimic circuit tuned to at least two time constrmts. However, this would increase the high-pass filtering effect, which is not desirable. With further improvement of the performance indices of the type I1 LSF and cosine filters, a mimic filter could equally be applied to them but both are already performing their task of removing the J offset quite adequately. X Improvement of Kalman filter response After a few tests, application of a mimic circuit prior to entering a Kalman filter did not improve the performance.

o o o

10.~

o
lo3

o o

o
10.3

0 0 1 0

Another means of improvement is to further modify the process noise covariance matrix by increasing the terms related to the DC offset, as in Eq. 22. The effects on the time responses are illustrated in Fig. 16.

Fig. 16. Time response of Kalman filter to test waveforms.

627

On the contrary, in filters where the decaying current was modeled by a constant plus a decaying ramp, the performance is significantly improved. c) Third-order Kalman filters prove to be sensitive to variations of the DC offset time constant. It has been shown that the addition of a constant term, corresponding to the modeling of a DC component in the signal significantly improves the performance. AcknowledPmentz The author thanks Lesley Kelley-Regnier of Hydro-Quebec for careful editing of the text. ADDendix 1 .. or t e s u wave-

Summarv of results Table 10 summarizes the results presented above and gives the average values of the two performance indices for the filters studied in this paper. Considering only the DC offset removal capability, the mimic/full-cycle DFT filter combination offers the type 2 performance index closest to zero over the defined range of time constants. The type I1 LSF and improved Kalman perform almost as well. It should be borne in mind that adding a mimic filter to the half-cycle filter substantially improves the original. Table 10. PI of filters.

Consider the network of Fig. A1 representing a voltage source supplying a power system modeled by an equivalent resistance in series with an inductance. In this model, R and L represent the impedance of the source together with the one of the line. Since the impedance of the source varies with the network topology, the L/R ratio or the impedance time constant has to be considered as a variable.

Fig. A l . Equivalent circuit of a power system during a fault. If the voltage source is of the form v (t) = Vpeak sin ( at + 8 ) (AI) the current in the circuit, when the switch is closed, will be i (t) = Ipeak [ sin ( at + 8 - 8) ,

- sin (e - ez)exp (with

X/R

)1

8 = atan ( X / R ) = atan ( a L / R ) ,
Conclusion This paper has presented an analysis of the performance of some popular relaying digital filters with respect to their DC removal capability. In light of this analysis, the following points can be
A null DC offset will occur when
( n= 0,1,2,3 etc...) 0 - eZ = n x arid the current waveform becomes

made:
a) The addition of a mimic digital filter when processing a current waveform prior to entering a full-cycle D I T filter completely suppresses the effect of an exponentially decaying component at the output over a broad range of time constants (0.5 to S cycles and more). The perform'ance of the DFT filter will then surpass that of most known filters. The price to be paid is reduced immunity to off-nominal frequencies or noise because of the amplification of high-frequency components. AS illustrated by the case of the half-cycle Fourier filter, application of the same mimic filter turns out to be very effective for filters displaying non-zero attenuation on their zero-frequencyresponses . b) In least-squares-fitting filters, where the DC offset was modeled as a decreasing exponential, the performance is very poor.

i (t) = Ipeak sin ( at )

A maximum value of DC offset will occur when
( n= 1, 3 ,S etc...) 2 with the current waveform equal to

6 - e, = n

L/R The test waveforms chosen for this paper were Eq. AS for current corresponding to a null DC offset and Eq. A7 corresponding to a maximum DC offset. Aupendix 2 PrinciDle of a mimic circuit

i (t) = Ipeak [ cos ( at ) - exp (-

)I

(t 1 Fig. A2. Principle of a mimic circuit. Consider the circuit of Fig. A2 where a current source supplies a resistance in series with an inductance. The voltage across the combination is provided by
Vo (s) = ( s L + R) I (s) If the current has a DC offset of the form I(t) = e x p ( - L
)

.
References

F l
vo

(A8) (A9)

( then the voltage due to the D:offset term alone will be

L-I [ I (s)] =L-' [ s L + R ] (A101 s + 1 / T If r = L/R, then the inverse Laplace transfonn of a constant is a unit pulse uo (t) at time t = 0 as in
L-I [ I (s)] = 1U0 (1)

(A11)

In practical terms, transformation of the exponentially decaying current into a unit pulse voltage means that the DC offset in the measured output voltage has vanished. Awendix J filter The study conducted in this paper has neglected the effect of the anti-aliasing filter. It could be shown both dieoretically and by simulation that this effect is negligible with respect to the results presented here. As an example, Fig. A3 shows the response of a full-cycle DFT filter when suhjected to a test waveform corresponding to Eq. 2 with a DC component decaying rate of one cycle, with and without a simulated antialiasing filter. In this case, the anti-aliasing filter is a fourth order Butterworth with a cut-off frequency of 360 Hz. It can be seen that the effect of the anti-aliasing filter is to delay the output magnitude by one sample without significantly changing the output.

m T E tg

.-alia. . .

[I] A.G. Phadke, J.S. Thorp, COMPUTER RELAYING FOR POWER SYSTEMS, Research Study Press Ltd., John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1988. [2] M.S. Sachdev, Coordinator, MICROPROCESSOR RELAYS A N D PROTECTION SYSTEMS, IEEE Tutorial Course, 88EH0269-1-PWR. [3] M.S. Sachdev, M.A. Baribeau, "A Digital Computer Relay for Impedance Protection of Transmission Lines," Trans. of the Engineering and Operating Division, Canadian Electrical Association, Vol. 18, Part 3, No. 79-SP-158, 1979, pp. 1-5. [4] M.S. Sachdev, M.A. Baribeau, "A New Algorithm for Digital Impedance Relays," IEEE PAS-98, Vol. 2, No. 4, Dec. 1979, pp. 253-260. [SI A.G. Phadke, T. Hlibka, M. Ibrahin, M. G. Admiak, "A Microprocessor-Based Symmetrical Component Distance Relay," Proceedings of PICA, May 1979, Cleveland. [6] A.A. Girgis, R. Grover Brown, "Application of Kalman Filtering in Computer Relaying," IEEE Trans. PAS-100, No. 7, July 1981, pp. 3387-3397. [7] A.A. Girgis, R. Grover Brown, "A New Kalman FilteringBased Digital Distance Relay," IEEE Trans. PAS-101, No. 9, September 1982, pp. 3471-3480. [8] A.A. Girgis, R. Grover Brown, "Modeling of Fault-induced Noise Signals for Computer Relaying Applications," IEEE Trans. PAS-102, No. 9, September 1083, pp. 2841. [ 9 ] A.G. Phadke, T. Hlibka, M. Ibrahin, "Fundamental Basis tor Distance Relaying with Symmetrical Components", IEEE Trans. PAS-96, No. 2, March/April 1977, pp. 635-646. [ 101. G. Benmouyal, "Frequency-Domain Characterization of Kalman Filters as Applied to Power System Protection," IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, July 1992, Vol. 7, pp. 1129-1138. [ l l ] E. 0. Schweitzer 111, D. Hou, "Filtering for Protective Relays", 19th Annual Western Protective Relay Conference, Spokane, Wa\hington, 1992. B i o c w Gahriel Benmauyd received his B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and his M.A.Sc. in Control Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique, Universitk de Montreal, Canada in 1968 and 1970 respectively. In 1969, he joined Hydro-Quebec as an instrumentation and control specialist. He worked on different projects in the field of substation control systems and dispatching centres. Since 1978, he has been working at IREQ where his main field of activity is the application of microprocessors and digital techniques to substation and generating-station control and protection (ystems. tfe is a registered professional engineer in the Province of Quebec, is an IEEE member and has served on the Power System Relaying Committee since May 1989.

Fig. A3. Effect of an anti-aliasing filter.

629

Discussion David G. Hart and Damir Novosel, ABB-TTI, Raleigh, NC: The author has presented an interesting paper which attempts to define indices which can be used in evaluating phasor estimation algorithm. The author explores the complex topic and makes several conclusion. The following remarks are made regarding the paper:
1. The author defines yl(t) and y2(t) as the output of the filter. Since the filter is estimating the frequency components, how does the author define the output as a function of time ? How are frequency domain terms integrated in the time domain in equations 3 and 4 ?

performance of various phasor estimation algorithm. To the discussers, it appears difficult to rank the algorithms using only the indices outlined in the paper. Does the author plan additional work in this area ? The author comments on the above remarks would be appreciated.
Manuscript received August 22, 1994.

G. Benmouyal : The author would like first to thank the

discussers for their very stimulating remarks and questions. Each paragraph will be addressed separately. Answer to auestion 1: A phasor estimation algorithm can be evaluated from different perspectives: -immunity to harmonics -immunity to off-nominal components -immunity to frequency shifts -immunity to noise --immunity to dc-offset -speed and response time etc. Because a filter cannot be outstanding with respect to all these criteria, a filtering system is generally a compromise. Testing of a filter can be accomplished by using waveforms obtained from different sources like a real network, EMTP or a Transient Network Analyzer. The problem with this kind of testing is that in order for a parameter to be tested it has to be present in the waveform: the immunity to frequency shifts cannot be tested with waveforms exhibiting a fixed frequency, immunity to harmonics cannot be tested with a linear network. A filter can, however, be tested independently with respect to each of the listed features. This is precisely what has been done in the paper: a number of popular filters have been tested with respect to their immunitv to dc-offset only.Therefore the performance indices defined in the paper are only good with respect to dc-offset immunity. Should we have other frequency components, different performance indices should be used. The performance indices defined in the paper are based on the premise that the testing functions contain only noise-free 60Hertz sine components and exponentiallydecreasing dc-offset. Should the waveform contain additional noxious components, the performance should degrade, not improve. y2(t) is the magnitude time response when there is a dc-offset and yl(t) is the response when there is no dc-offset. If the filter is completely immune to dc-offset, the difference between the two responses should be zero. It tums out that these indices are sound because for filters more immune to dcoffset effects, PI0 and PI1 are very small values. Answer to auestion 2: Refer to the preliminary statement in answer to question 1. A 1 Hertz component is an off-nominal frequency signal and the purpose of the study was not to answer this matter which, nonetheless is important. Answer to auestion 3: It should be borne in mind that so called DFT filters are in fact least squares fitting filters where only fundamental and no exponential are modeled. Higher sampling rates do not improve the dc-offset removal capability of an LSF 2 filter. Reducing the number of harmonics does not change the basic principle stated in the paper: when the dc-offset is modeled as an exponential, the capability of the LSF 2 filter to remove the dc-offset effect is very limited.

2. When a waveform is sampled, the sampling frequency

must be a minimum of twice the highest frequency in the waveform. Anti-aliasing filters are required to attenuate the higher frequency components which may be present in the waveform. However, if the author is testing the waveform with, for example, a 1 Hertz signal, for one 60 Hertz cycle, this will only account for 1/60th of one cycle of the input waveform. Which part of the input waveform the algorithm processes is dependent on the phase angle of the input and will affect the frequency response plots in the paper. Did the author consider this in the present study ? How would the inclusion of a 1 Hertz waveform in addition to a 60 Hertz input impact the 60 Hertz estimate ?

3. The authors compares several estimation techniques, including the DFT and least squares. For the ideal noiseless inputs defined, the DFT is attempting to estimate two unknowns using 12 samples. The least squares filter, LSF 2, is trying to estimate twelve unknowns ( 5 harmonics + exponential terms) using twelve samples. The DFT filter can be considered an over redundant set of equations while the LSF 2 has one equation for each unknown. Did the author consider either a higher sampling rate for the LSF 2 algorithm or reducing the number of unknowns (harmonics) before making a comparison? Is it possible higher sampling rates could improve one algorithm while not offering much benefit to another ? other least squares implementations ?
4. The author states the proposed method does not allow, "the speed of the filter to be deduced". It should be noted that this is an important parameter of interest for the application of phasor estimation for relaying and should be considered in an evaluation.

5 . Last, there are several different means of implementing particular algorithms such as least squares and Kalman filtering. How one implements the filter in terms of unknowns, formulation, and parameters can significantly alter results. Did the author consider other least squares implementations ? The author evaluate the Kalman filter in the paper. Kalman filtering is a recursive optimal estimation algorithm which requires statistical parameters of the signal to be processed. As a result, the output of the filter is only good as the "fit" of the statistical model of the signal being processed. Will the author comment on the selection of these values for both Kalman filters evaluated ?
6. Equation 2 is incorrect (exponential term should be negative). The correct equation is included in the appendix.
In summary, the author has presented an interesting paper, which tries to establish some means of evaluating the

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As an example, a filter (identified LSF A) has been synthesized using a least squares technique based on a waveform consisting of a fundamental and an exponential as in: i(t) = A e-k + B ( sin cot + e ) (AI)

Answer to auestion 4: The speed of a filter is the paramount parameter. It was not however the focus of attention in the present study. Answer to auestion 5: In Kalman filters, two kind of signals are modeled : deterministic and noise. The exponentially decaying component is a deterministic component normally modeled with a fixed time constant in the state transition matrix. In that perspective, modeling the statistical parameters of the signal is a matter which is independent from the immunity of the filter to dc-offset effect. The same principle apply to harmonics and off-nominal components that have to be modeled in the state transition matrix. It turns out that a Kalman filter is sensitive to variations of the dc-offset time constant. The paper has shown that a Kalman filter will only be outstanding in removing a dcoffset which time constant is the same as the one modeled in the state transition matrix. For that reason, the state transition matrix has to be modified to account for these variations. A mimic circuit, installed prior to the filter processing, provides poor results. This matter is fully deterministicand independent from noise statistics. Answer to auestion 6: a minus sign is indeed missing in equation 2. As an answer to the last comment, Table 10 is definitely not the one to be used if one is interested to provide a rank to filters in general. It refers only to the performance of filters with respect to a specific parameter: immunity to dc-offset.

A second filter (LSF B) has been synthesized based this time on the dc-offset modeled as a constant and a ramp as in: i(t)=A( 1 - t ) + B ( s i n o t + O )
7

a( f

In both cases, the number of samples has been increased to 16 sampleskycle and the filter data window is 8 samples (or halfcycle). The time constant is one cycle. Fig. A1 shows the time responses of both filters to a test function corresponding to equation 2 of the paper with an incoming dc-offset of one cycle. Fig. A2 shows the frequency response of both filters. One can infer that changing the sampling frequency or the data window do not alter the conclusions of the paper: the filter where the dc-offset has been modeled as a constant and a ramp has a better capability in removing the dc-offset effect. However its frequency response is less immune to higher frequencies components.
1.2
, , , , I , , , . I

, , , , l , , , , l , , , . I , , . ,

rl
_....__ B LSF

This paper is underlining a testing philosophy: use particular testing waveforms depending upon which filters feature one is interested in. The overall performance of a filter could be assessed by summing a number of weighted indices. We intend to foster this approach. Furthermore if a manufacturer was providing in its relays specifications, the value of one of the indices used in this paper, the user would get a clear picture of the performance without the need for further time consuming and expensive testing.
Manuscript received October 24, 1994.

Fig. A1 Time responses of filters LSF A & B.

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........ LSF B
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FREQLENCY

Fig. A2 Frequency responses of filters LSF A & B.