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Smart Underground Wireless Cable Fault Detection and Monitoring System

Conference Paper · February 2020

DOI: 10.1109/ICEET48479.2020.9048210

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Smart Underground Wireless Cable Fault Detection
and Monitoring System
Rao Muhammad Asif1, Syed Rizwan Hassan2, Ateeq Ur Rehman3, Asad Ur Rehman4, Bilal Masood5, Zain Ali Sher6

1,4,6Department of Electrical Engineering, The Superior College, Lahore, Pakistan

2
Department of Electrical Engineering, NFC-IEFR, Faisalabad, Pakistan
3
College of Internet of Things Engineering, Hohai University, Changzhou, China
3
Department of Electrical Engineering, Government College University Lahore, Pakistan
5School of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

Abstract—Whenever a fault occurs in the underground locate faults and identify the phase line in damaged cables.
cable line for some reason, repairing wires of that faulty cable The main challenge in the underground cable is exact fault
becomes quite difficult because of a lack of a proper system for
tracking the precise fault location. A system needs to be detection which is difficult to locate in the area.
developed that can find the precise location of the occurred The organization of the paper is as follows. Section
fault in the system for all the three phases R, Y, and B for II contains the literature. The schematic diagram and details
different types of faults conditions. By Ohm’s Law, it is found about the working of the project are included in section III.
that the resistance of the cable is proportional to its length Section IV carries the detail about the Simulations. Section
under constant conditions of temperature and the cross-section V demonstrates the hardware implementation of the
area. Here a system is developed which consists of a
proposed system. The business model analysis is shown in
microcontroller, LCD display, Fault Sensing Circuit Module,
Wi-Fi Module, and proper power supply arrangement with Section VI. Finally, section VII concludes the paper and
regulated power output. Current in the circuit is sensed by the carries some future suggestions.
relays which are interconnected with the microcontroller. The
fault sensing circuit is made with the combination of a set of II. LITERATURE REVIEW
series resistors and switches alongside each resistor. This
proposed system is simulated and tested on PROTEUS version There are various methods for fault detection. This strategy
8.1 and the hardware is designed on the basis of simulated manages identification and shortcomings in underground
design. In the end, the Fault is not only detected but also link arrange. By producing a model of transmission in
located at the exact location and has been shown on website
MATLAB, the fault can be found in three steps. Afterward,
“Things peak.”
the Fourier analysis from the model of Simulink which is
Keywords—Underground Cable Fault Detection, Analog to important to prepare Artificial Neural Network (ANN) so as
Digital Converter (ADC), Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Fault to identify the kind of shortcoming. Resulting in advancing
Sensing Circuit Module
the technology, a modern software named OrCAD is used in
providing a good base for measuring the fault [1].
I. INTRODUCTION Another strategy proposes the mixture choice
The utilization of the underground power link is growing calculation of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and
because of security contemplations and upgraded fuzzy so as to recognize the area of a flaw in the
dependability in the circulation frameworks as of late. underground cable link. For finding the fault, the high
Because of security threats and the need for high power in component of frequency obtained from the transform is
populated areas, underground cables have been of vital used. The first peak time which is calculated after the
importance. The advantage of the underground cable is that transform is of great importance as it is used to determine
it is secure and it cannot be affected by bad weather the fault location [2].
conditions. But it has its own drawback for immediate Modern relays combine the characteristics and
tracking of fault in the underground cable lines. Cable qualities of different kinds of relays, one of the common
failures and precise detection of cable faults have been a relays is the quad impedance relay. There are certain
major issue in electrical engineering. The main problem is to advantages of using this relay in the fault detection system.
detect the location of the fault and furthermore the nature of A quad impedance relay can find the location of fault after it
the fault which has occurred at that point. The fault is modified in a certain way. It is known as a hybrid system
detection methods in underground cable systems are still of the relay. However, if the fault occurs near to the point of
getting better day by day with the advancement in junction, it is difficult to address the fault. Another method
technology and by the use of different detection schemes. is the time domain reflectometry in which a low power
The first step in the detection of fault is the fault signal is sent and as a result, the insulation of the cable
identification. There are different ways to determine the remains protected and unharmed. A cable that is not faulty
cable fault location. This project deals with the method to
returns in a specific time and behavior which is calculated electromagnetic field is produced. A capacitor is used to
and determined before sending the low signal. filter out the AC component in the system and a regulator is
used to make the voltages stable for the system. Hence the
fault is detected by the IC. Many underground faults occur
due to the poor laying of underground cables. The majority
of the faults are detected by digging the whole place and
locate the fault which is a time taking process. The
underground cable faults become difficult to detect because
of the reason that faults can not be seen by eye, hence the
whole cable needs to be changed. The impedance method
Figure 1 Signal transmitted through and reflected back by a fault has its own limitations, however, if the impedance method is
applied with the help of microcontrollers and relays, it
The incipient faults can be detected and determined creates an efficient system to detect the underground cable
by using the wavelet analysis. The relays sense the faults faults and furthermore, increases the efficiency of the
when it occurs in the system. However, extra effort may be system. The comparison of the fault detection schemes with
needed for finding the cable which is faulty. the passage of years is given in Table 1.
The cross-linked polyethylene power cables are
used in a variety of underground cable societies. The fault Table I Yearly comparison of the fault detection methods
point is necessary to determine in this method. The previous Years Key contribution Reference
methods like Murray loop have their own limitations 2000-2006 The Faults were [4,5,9]
detected using
regarding fault detection. The faulty cable must be separated Fourier Analysis and
from both sides of the power station and it needs to be the Alert Method
connected with measurement equipment to determine the 2007-2010 The Surge arc [8,12]
fault. Certain high voltage cable faults are a greater threat to reflection was widely
used and it permits to
the electrical systems and they need to be addressed with
locate the faults in
some efficient methodology. There are different methods to power cables at the
detect the faults in high voltage cables which are widely lowest possible.
used these days for the detection of faults. The fault location 2011-2014 To achieve a higher [1-3]
in multi-end cable systems can be found using the signal signal to noise ratio,
processing technique. Both the first and second voltage the adaptive filter
wave can be identified realistically. This scheme is applied methodology was
to the model coordinates of the system. Based on fault used to detect the
location calculations, the system detects the fault in the faults.
corresponding cable. For the protection of overcurrent,
another scheme which is fast enough using different logics 2015-2018 The GSM technology [6, 7,10,11, 14]
is becoming common
and can determine several faults such as through faults. The
because of the
Incipient Cable Splice Failure (ICSF) method uses this flexibility and the
scheme for the detection. Furthermore, this method has been easiness in the
included in a universal relay platform that has an additional monitoring and
detection of faults.
function of a special protocol named User Datagram
Protocol (UDP). By modifying the impedance, this method
is quite effective in determining the fault location precisely. III. SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM AND WORKING
The methods in which the fault is detected based on the The first major process in the circuit methodology is
difference of the impedance have several errors because it rectification which converts the AC input to DC input to be
does not take into account the load current parameter and fed to the microcontroller for the monitoring of the circuit.
non-uniform line impedances which results in an inaccurate The microcontroller operates on the specific conditions
value of the fault and its location. However, using the short being set on it and carries out a specific task. The relays on
circuit method, the fault is generated at different sections of lines are used to sense the current. In case of disruption from
the wire and this method works effectively to detect the the normal behavior of the current, it sends the data to the
location of the fault [2]. microcontroller to show the distance and the line on which
With the advancement in microcontrollers and their the fault is located. A 12V relay is used to compensate for
operation, another method uses a 16F887 microcontroller. the applied voltages and in order to operate the relays for
This method is based on the phenomena of electromagnetic sensing faults. The result of the occurrence of faults is
induction. As soon as the current flows through the wire, the
displayed on the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). It shows the transfers electrical signals between two isolated circuits by
distance and the line on which the fault occurs. using light. Opto-isolators prevent high voltages from
affecting the system receiving the signal. A common type of
opto-isolator consists of an LED and a phototransistor in the
same opaque package. Usually opto-isolators transfer digital
(on-off) signals, but some techniques allow them to be used
with analog signals.
E. Website
The Website displays the results on the through wireless
communication and data is transmitted via the Wi-Fi module
ESP8266. The Website thingspeak.com supports a maths
work account to log in. It also stores the history of the
occurrence of the faults and displays the distance of fault in
the corresponding column. In the second window, it shows
the numeric display of the magnitude of the fault which has
occurred in feet. So in this way, the magnitude and the
graphical representation of every line are shown with the
occurrence of the corresponding faults in those lines.

Figure 2 Schematic Diagram of the Proposed System IV. SIMULATION

The aim of this project is to create a smart
A. AtMega 328P with Arduino Board underground fault detection and monitoring system, which
The ATmega328/P is a low-power CMOS 8-bit can help to save time in detecting the underground faults.
microcontroller based on the AVR® enhanced RISC The simulation of the project was performed on PROTEUS
architecture. This empowers the system designer to optimize 8.1 as shown in Figure 3. In the simulation, the three phases
the device for power consumption versus processing speed. of each line are shown and they are sectionalized by
It has 32KBytes of In-System Self-Programmable Flash different resistances.
program Memory, 1KBytes EEPROM, 2KBytes Internal
As the length of the conductor increases, the
SRAM and Write/Erase Cycles of 10,000 Flash/100,000
capable EEPROM. It can be programmed using the Arduino resistance also increases so by the change of the value of
IDE [13]. resistance at every phase, the current also varies. The relays
sense the current at every point and if it deviates from the
B. Step Up and Step Down Transformer
specified value, it sends the command to the microcontroller
A Transformer is a static apparatus, with no moving
to display the fault.
parts, which transforms electrical power from one circuit to
another with changes in voltage and current and no change
in frequency. There are two types of transformers classified
by their function: Step up Transformer and Stepdown
Transformer. A transformer designed to reduce the voltage
from primary to secondary is called a step-down
transformer. Step down transformer is a type of transformer,
which converts a high voltage at the primary side to a low
voltage at the secondary side.
C. ACS 712V
The ACS712 provides economical and precise solutions
for AC or DC current sensing in industrial, commercial, and
communications systems. The device package allows for
easy implementation by the customer. Typical applications
include motor control, load detection and management,
switched-mode power supplies, and overcurrent fault
protection. Figure 3 Proteus circuit for simulation
The ACS712 Module uses the famous ACS712 IC to A. Real-time Fault Detection on Line 1
measure current using the Hall Effect principle. The module The result of the occurrence of a fault on line 1 is shown
gets its name from the IC (ACS712) used in the module, so in Figure 4.
the final products use the IC directly instead of the module.
D. Opto Coupler
An opto-isolator (also called an opto-coupler, photo-
coupler, or optical isolator) is an electronic component that
 easier to connect it through the DC adapter for giving the DC
input to the microcontroller. The Wi-Fi Module ESP 8266 is
really useful in serial communication. The hardware picture
is shown in Figure 7.

Figure 4 Detection of the Real-time Fault on Line 1.

In Figure 4, LCD displays that there is a fault on line 1 at
the distance of 1 km from the control room and hence this
data is used to identify fault location.
B. Real-time Fault Detection on Line 2
The results of the fault on line 2 is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 7 Prototype for the Hardware Model of Smart

Underground cable Fault Detection and Monitoring System

VI. BUSINESS MODEL

Figure 5 Detection of the Real-time Fault on Line 2.
A. Start-Up Financing
Similarly, in Figure 5, the information on LCD displays that The money which is required for starting a business is called
there is a fault in line 2 at the distance of 2 km from the start-up financing. The start-up financial plan is shown in
Table 2:
control room and hence this data is used to identify fault
location. Table II Start-Up Financing
C. Real-time Fault Detection on Line 3 Sr. Description Amount(Rs.)
The results of the fault on line 3 is shown in Figure 6. No
1 Total Capital Expenses 165,000
2 3 Months Operating expenses 75,000
(25,000*3)
Total Start-Up Financing 240,000
VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The major problems occurring in underground
cable fault detection are to locate the exact distance of
faults, the nature of faults, effective monitoring system and
these are difficult to repair. In order to tackle these
problems, many different methods have been devised. All
Figure 6 Detection of the Real-time Fault on Line 3. the previous methods used have their own significance and
limitations as well. Currently, the system consists of a fault
Figure 6 displays the fault on line 3 at a distance of 1 km detection system that determines the location of
from the control room. Hence the faults at the corresponding underground cable faults in an efficient manner. However,
locations can be detected using this method efficiently. for further effectiveness of the fault locating mechanism, a
protection system may be designed which disconnects the
V. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE faulty line from the system and hence will prevent the
PROPOSED SYSTEM system to undergo greater damage.
The basic components in the project are the Arduino [13]
VIII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
with AtMega 328P, Wi-Fi Module ESP 8266 and the Relays
which sense the faults and send value to the controller. The This work is supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant 51950410583.
Arduino board helps in the easier arrangement of the
connections with the microcontroller. Furthermore, it is REFERENCES
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