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Power Quality Analysis Using STransform

P. K. Dash, B. K. Panigrahi, and G. Panda
AbstractThis paper presents a new approach for power quality analysis using a modified wavelet transform known as Stransform. The local spectral information of the wavelet transform can, with slight modification, be used to perform local cross spectral analysis with very good time resolution. The phase correction absolutely references the phase of the wavelet transform to the zero time point, thus assuring that the amplitude peaks are regions of stationary phase. The excellent timefrequency resolution characteristic of the Stransform makes it an attractive candidate for analysis of power system disturbance signals. Several power quality problems are analyzed using both the Stransform and discrete wavelet transform, showing clearly the advantage of the Stransform in detecting, localizing, and classifying the power quality problems. Index TermsPhase correction, power quality problems, S transform, wavelet transform.

I. INTRODUCTION OWER supply quality issues and the resulting problems are the consequences of the increasing use of solid state switching devices, nonlinear and power electronically switched loads, unbalanced power systems, lighting controls, computer and data processing equipment, as well as industrial plant rectifiers and inverters. These electronic-type loads cause quasistatic harmonic dynamic voltage distortions, inrush, pulse-type current phenomenon with excessive harmonics, and high distortion. A power quality problem usually involves a variation in the electric service voltage or current, such as voltage dips and fluctuations, momentary interruptions, harmonics and oscillatory transients causing failure, or maloperation of the power service equipment. Hence, to improve power quality, it is required to know the sources of power system disturbances and find ways to mitigate them. To monitor electrical power quality disturbance, short time discrete Fourier transform (STFT) is most often used. This transform has been successfully used for stationary signals where properties of signals do not evolve in time. For nonstationary signals, the STFT does not track the signal dynamics properly due to the limitations of a fixed window width chosen a priori. Thus, STFT cannot be used sucessfully to analyze transient signals comprising both high- and low-frequency components. On the other hand, wavelet analysis provides a unified framework for monitoring power quality problems. Wavelet analysis [1] is based on the decomposition of a signal according to time-scale, rather than frequency, using basis functions with adaptable scaling properties which are known as mulManuscript received July 18, 2000; revised January 30, 2002. P. K. Dash is with the Multimedia University, Selangor, 63100, Malaysia. B. K. Panigrahi is with the U.C.E., Burla, India. G. Panda is with the REC, Rourkela, India. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2003.809616

tiresolution analysis. A wavelet transform expands a signal not in terms of a trigonometric polynomial but by wavelets, generated using transition (shift in time) and dilation ( compression in time) of a fixed wavelet function. The wavelet function is localized in time and frequency yielding wavelet coefficients at different scales. This gives the wavelet transform much grater compact support for analysis of signals with localized transient components arising in power quality disturbances manifested in voltage, current, or frequency deviations. Several types of wavelets have been considered [2][4] for detection, and localization of power quality problems as both time and frequency informations are available by multiresolution analysis. However, for classifying both low-frequency and high-frequency power quality disturbances, a separate FFT routine and several neural networks are required along with the features extracted from the wavelet multiresolution analysis [5] and this procedure results in a high computational overhead. The Stransform [6], on the other hand, is an extension to the ideas of wavelet transform, and is based on a moving and scalable localizing Gaussian window and has characteristics superior to either of the transforms. The Stransform is fully convertible from the time domain to two-dimensional (2-D) frequency translation domain and to then familiar Fourier frequency domain. The amplitude frequencytime spectrum and the phasefrequencytime spectrum are both useful in defining local spectral characteristics. The superior properties of the Stransform are due to the fact that the modulating sinusoids are fixed with respect to the time axis while the localizing scalable Gaussion window dilates and translates. As a result, the phase spectrum is absolute in the sense that it is always referred to the origin of the time axis, the fixed reference point. The real and imaginary spectrum can be localized independently with a resolution in time, corresponding to the basis function in question and the changes in the absolute phase of a constituent frequency can be followed along the time axis and useful information can be extracted. The phase correction of the wavelet transform in the form of Stransform can provide significant improvement in the detection and localization of power quality disturbance transients. II. MODIFIED WAVELET TRANSFORM: STRANSFORM It is well known that information is contained in the phase of the spectrum, as well as in the amplitude. In order to utilize the information contained in the phase of the continuous wavelet transform (CWT), it is necessary to modify the phase of the of a function is defined mother wavelet. The CWT as (1)

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where is a scaled replica of the fundamental mother wavelet; the dilation determines the width of the wavelet and this controls the resolution. The Stransform is obtained by multiplying the CWT with a phase factor as (2) Where the mother wavelet for this particular case is defined as (3) In the equation just shown, the dilation factor is the inverse of the frequency . Thus, the final form of the continuous Stransform is obtained as
(a)

(4) and the width of the Gaussian window is (5)

(b) Fig. 1. (a) Signal. (b) Stransform contour.

A. Inverse STransform Since Stransform is a representation of the local spectra, Fourier or time average spectrum can be directly obtained by averaging the local spectrums as (6) (7) III. RESULTS OF POWER QUALITY ANALYSIS B. Discrete STransform The power system disturbance signal , in a discrete form as the sampling time interval. The discrete Fourier transform of can be expressed and is is obtained as (8) where Using (4), the STransform of a discrete time series and as obtained by letting Power quality analysis comprises various kinds of electrical disturbances such as voltage sags, voltage swells, harmonic distortions, flickers, imbalances, oscillatory transients, and momentary interruptions, etc. Using the time frequency localization property of the Stransform, the above power quality problems are analyzed and detected. Some of the results of the Stransform are compared with the same obtained by using a Daubechies4 wavelet [1] as the mother wavelet and performing the first level of decomposition. Test 1 analyzes voltage sag, voltage swell, momentary interruptions, and oscillatory transients from computer generated waveforms using MATLAB code. The chosen sampling rate is 2.5 kHz, and the frequency f can be normalized with respect to a base frequency if required. The Stransform output shows the plot of the amplitude contours of a given magnitude in the time-frequency coordinate system. In this test, the wavelet outputs are not shown as they are reported elsewhere [1][4]. In test 2, the analysis of capacitor transients is considered and the results for Stransform, wavelet transform, and STFT are obtained for a meaningful comparison. Test 3 outlines a classification procedure for volage sag, voltage swell, and voltage interruption. Equation (10) gives the constant average of the time series into zero frequency voice, so that the averaging of the amplitude of the S-matrix over the time results in Fourier spectrum. Amplitude and phase of the S-matrix are obtained and as , respectively.

is

(9) and and , where . For

(10)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 18, NO. 2, APRIL 2003

(a) (a)

(b) (b) Fig. 2. (a) Signal. (b) Stransform contour. Fig. 4. (a) Signal. (b) Stransform contour.

(a) (a)

(b) Fig. 3. (a) Signal. (b) Stransform contour.

(b) Fig. 5. (a) Signal. (b) Stransform contour.

A. Test 1 1) Voltage Sag: This problem occurs due to a fault, switching of heavy load, or starting of large motors. The amplitude of the voltage drops by 10 to 90 percent of the

rated value due to the sag condition. Fig. 1 shows the time frequency plot of the Stransform contours for a 50% sag in the voltage signal. From the figure, it is found that the Stransform contours show a magnitude reduction durung the disturbance similar to a voltage sag clearly localizing and detecting the

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(a)

(b)

(c) Fig. 6 (a) Signal. (b) S-transform contour. (c) STFT contour. (d) Wavelet coefficients.

(d)

(a)

(b)

(c) Fig. 7. (a) Signal. (b) Stransform contour. (c) STFT contour. (d) Wavelet coefficients.

(d)

disturbance. Also, it has been found that by adding a random noise with a SNR of 20 dB, the Stransform contours exhibit only a very marginal variation. 2) Voltage Swell: When the normal voltage signal increases by 10 to 90 percent, it is known as voltage swell. Fig. 2 shows the timefrequency plot of the Stransform contours. Like the

sag case, the pattern produces a swell in the magnitude during the disturbance and this can be directly used for classification. The time localization of the disturbance can also be seen from these contours. Momentary Interruption: A momentary interruption can be seen as a momentary loss of voltage on a power system. Such

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 18, NO. 2, APRIL 2003

(a) (a)

(b) Fig. 8. Signals having different percentages of (a) Sag and (b) Swell. (b)

disturbances describe a drop of 90 to 100% of the rated system voltage lasting for 0.5 cycle to 1 min. Fig. 3 shows the Stransform contours for a momentary interruption of power lasting for 50 ms. The contours clearly show a huge reduction in magnitude and a break and this is used for classifying these categories of disturbance. Oscillatory Transients: The power quality disturbance is called oscillatory if it lasts for a time duration shorter than sags or swells. These transients can be categorized into several groups like impulsive, notched, or oscillatory. Figs. 4 and 5 show Stransform contours for power quality transients like spike and notch clearly showing patterns suitable for classifying these events. From the previous examples given in test 1, it can be observed that the Stranform generates contours which are suitable for classification by simple visual inspection unlike the wavelet tranform. The wavelet transform produces almost similar patterns for voltage sag, swell, and momentary interruption. The visual inspection procedure can be dispensed by using a simple rule base or a neural network along with the features extracted from Stransform contours. B. Test 2 It is well known that high-frequency waveforms generated due to power quality events like capacitor switching in distribution networks are detected and localized accurately by wavelet transforms. Hence, for these types of transient disturbances, the outputs from the Stransform are presented along with wavelet transform in Figs. 6 and 7 for a meaningful comparison. Also, the results from STFT are shown in these figures, clearly

Fig. 9. (a) Percentage of sag. (b) Percentage of swell.

showing its inability to identify the type of power quality disturbances due to a fixed window chosen a priori. From the results presented in the figures, it can be observed that the Stransform contours clearly show the change in the frequency of the signal during capacitor switching event. C. Test 3 Classification of Power Quality Events: In this section, an attempt has been made to classify the three basic power quality signals (i.e., voltage sag, swell, and momentary interruption). As the Stransform provides us a time-frequency representation (TFR) of the signal with frequency dependent resolution, the standard deviation of the TFR curve is taken as a measure to classify the signals. The standard deviation (SD) of the TFR is plotted for different signals having different percentages of sag and swell [shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b)]. The curve is changed to represent the energy distribution at different frequency bands at a certain time. It is observed that for a pure sinusoid, the standard deviation curve is linear over the entire range (this value is taken as a reference), where for the sags, the standard deviation falls below this reference value and rises above the reference for the swells. In our test, we have set this reference, (which is 0.1507 for a sinusoid of 1 p.u.) as a boundary. The standard deviation above this is a swell and the standard deviation below it is a sag. It is observed that during the test for different percentages of sag or swell, there is a proportionate decrease or increase in the standard deviation above the reference. This has been plotted as a bar plot in Fig. 9(a) and (b). Further, it is to be noted that

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the FFT used in the Stransform calculation provides both the amplitude and frequency components of the signal. For classifying both steady-state and transient disturbances, standard deviations at two different Gaussian window widths , and 3) are taken and an amplitude factor ( is determined from the Stransform matrix. These features can be used in a rule base or a backpropagation multilayered neural network to provide classification of the power quality events. The detailed results for an integrated Stransform and neural network approach for power quality disturbance signals with noise shall be presented in the near future.

REFERENCES
[1] S. Santoso, E. J. Powers, W. M. Grady, and P. Hofmann, Power quality assessment via wavelet transform analysis, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 11, pp. 924930, Apr. 1996. [2] S. Santoso, E. J. Powers, and W. M. Grady, Power quality disturbance data compression using wavelet transform methods, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 12, pp. 12501257, July 1997. [3] P. Pillay and A. Bhattacharjee, Application of wavelets to model short ter power system disturbances, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 11, pp. 20312037, Oct. 1996. [4] M. Gouda, M. M. A. Salama, M. R. Sultan, and A. Y. Chikhani, Power quality detection and classification using wavelet multiresolution signal decomposition, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 14, pp. 14691476, Oct. 1999. [5] A. Elmitwaly, S. Farhai, M. Kandil, S. Abdelkadar, and M. Elkateb, Proposed wavelet-neurofuzzy combined system for power quality violations detection and diagnosis, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng..-Gen. Trans. Dist., vol. 148, no. 1, pp. 1520, 2001. [6] R. G. Stockwell, L. Mansinha, and R. P. Lowe, Localization of the complex spectrum: The S transform, IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 44, pp. 9981001, Apr. 1996.

IV. CONCLUSION The modified discrete wavelet transform termed as Stransform is used in this paper as a powerful analysis tool for detection, localization, and classification of power quality problems. The timefrequency plot of the Stransform has a significant potential in comparison to the multiresolution analysis and standard deviation techniques using wavelets in classifying the power quality waveforms. Further, it is noted that the frequency dependant resolution of the Stransform allows the detection of high-frequency bursts and shows good frequency resolution on the long period signal. The phase of the Stransform referenced to the time origin provides useful supplementary information about spectra that is not available from locally referenced phase information in the wavelet transformation. Several power quality problems have been analyzed and the Stransform provides an interesting and significant tool in detecting and classifying the problem.

P. K. Dash is currently a Professor on the Faculty of Engineering at Multimedia University, Selangor, Malaysia. His research interests include fuzzy logic, artificail neural network (ANN), and signal processing applications in power networks, FACTS, power quality, and deregulated energy markets.

B. K. Panigrahi is currently a Lecturer in electrical engineering at the UCE, Burla, India, and is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in research in power quality analysis and control, and FACTS devices, etc.

G. Panda is currently a Professor and Head of Applied Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering at REC, Rourkela, India. His research interests include digital signal processing (DSP), telecommunications, and signal processing applications in power.