Real-Time Phasor Estimation
via the Taylor-Fourier’s Subspace
G. Avalos-Almazan∗, G. Castillo-Garcia∗ , M.R.A. Paternina∗, A. Zamora†, J.G. Fuentes∗, J.R. Rodrı́guez-Rodrı́guez∗
and D. Guillen∗
∗ UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico
† U.
Michoacana, Morelia, Mexico
g.avalos.a19[g.castilllo.g95]@gmail.com, mra.paternina[jr.rodriguez][daniel.guillen]@fi-b.unam.mx,
jfuentes@iingen.unam.mx, azamoram@umich.mx
Abstract—This paper focuses on the real-time phasor estima-
tion via Taylor-Fourier’s Subspace (TFS) on a low-cost embedded
platform. Signal processing is carried out using a sliding window
for the sampled signal by the Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC).
A digital Taylor-Fourier filter designed using the TFS, deals with
the extraction of the dynamic phasor estimates such as: ampli-
tude, phase angle, frequency, and rate of change of frequency
(ROCOF). Then, a Python-based interface is developed to display
the real-time monitoring for those parameters. Finally, results
exhibit the performance of the implemented phasor estimator
attaining reliable estimates for both simulated and real signals,
and tracking accurately the changes in amplitude, phase and
frequency.
Index Terms—Dynamic phasor estimates, Taylor-Fourier’s
subspace, phasor estimates, phasor measurement unit.
I. I NTRODUCTION
YNAMIC phasor estimation is one of the most popular
D topics in light of the IEEE Standard C37.118.1 2011
for synchrophasor measurements in power systems [1]. Its
importance has been growing with the large amount of appli-
cations where the Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) support
the making decisions process of the Independent System
Operators (ISOs). Such applications cover from the state
estimation, events detection, cybersecurity, damping control,
dynamic equivalents, systemic protection system, wide-area
monitoring/Control/Protection, among others [2, 3]. Given
such relevancy of this topic, many phasor estimation tech-
niques have been proposed in [4–10].
In the last few years, the most used phasor estimator has
been the discrete Fourier transform, whose straightforward
implementation is well-known as fast Fourier transform, which
provides excellent results under steady-state conditions (con-
stant frequency). However, it does not offer a suitable accuracy
under oscillations and sudden transient, where amplitude and
phase are time-varying [11]. As a result of more accuracy
estimations under dynamic events, ref. [10] has stated the
benefits of using dynamic phasors, which adopt a more flexible
model enabling to estimate a suitable phasor even though
under oscillatory conditions.
Among the emergents power system monitoring technolo-
gies, PMUs are the most promising. Nonetheless, the cost of
c 2018 IEEE
978-1-5386-7138-2/18/$31.00 ⃝
the most commercial PMUs does not facilitate the application
of this technology mainly to low/medium-voltage grids (distri-
bution networks). Within this context, this paper presents the
real-time implementation of the phasor estimation via Taylor-
Fourier’s Subspace (TFS) and its feasibility for running on
a Raspberry Pi, which it is considered a low-cost embedded
platform.
The novelty of the paper is to provide an alternative analysis
prototype for monitoring and capturing phasor information
from the voltage channels’ instantaneous signals, by using
the Taylor-Fourier subspace. The development is tested under
simulated and real signals, overcoming the implementation
problems as the real-time, execution time, uniform sampling
rate, measurement noise, among other challenges. TFS is
regarded since it is capable to provide estimates for Amplitude,
phase, frequency, ROCOF, and decaying, every time step.
In the sense of additional value gained by the proposed
method given that relays today have very mature tools for such
estimates, the major advantages of the used algorithm consist
of high processing speed, high accuracy levels for the phasor
estimates under transient conditions. Regarding the imple-
mentation, PMU dimension and commercial cost are reduced
according to other commercial PMUs, allowing to provide new
features such as wireless monitoring its measurements.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section
II presents a brief description of the dynamic model for phasor
estimation via the Taylor-Fourier’s subspace, where the main
parameters such as amplitude and phase angle and their deriva-
tives, frequency and ROCOF, are established. Then, the Taylor-
Fourier’s subspace implementation for processing real signals
is carried out in section III. In section IV, the experimental
results for simulated and real signals are illustrated assessing
the performance for both type of signals; also it is exhibited
that the phasor estimation process is able to obtain the phasor
parameters. Finally, concluding remarks are given in Section
V.
II. DYNAMIC P HASOR -BASED M ODEL
The dynamic phasor measurement model focuses on the
signal
s(t) = Re{p̃(t)ej2πf1 t } = a(t) cos(2πf1 t + ϕ(t)) (1)
where the amplitude a(t) and the phase ϕ(t) are time varying. estimated through the least-squares solution of the analysis
Thus p̃(t) = a(t)ejϕ(t) is a dynamic phasor and f1 is equation (6):
its fundamental frequency. The dynamic phasor p̃(t) can be ˆξ̇ ˆξ̈ (K) T
approximated by a K th Taylor polynomial centered at t0 ξ̂ = [ξ̂ ··· ξ̂ ] . (7)

(t − t0 )K Finally, the amplitude and phase estimates in p(t) and their

pK (t) =p(t0 ) + ṗ(t0 )(t − t0 ) + · · · + p(K) (t0 ) estimated derivatives are computed by
K!
T T
t0 − ≤ t ≤ t0 +
2 2 ˆ
â(t0 ) = |ξ|
(2)
ϕ̂(t0 ) = ∠ξˆ
In order to estimate the amplitude and phase variations, the ˆ −j ϕ̂
TFS in [12] is shaped as ˆ 0 ) = Im{ξ̇Fs e
ϕ̇(t
}
⎡ ⎤⎡ ⎤ â
ˆ
ϕ̇
⎢ t0n1 t1n1 ··· tK
n1 ⎥ ⎢WN 0 ··· 0 ⎥ fˆ = f1 + (8)
⎢ ⎥⎢ ⎥ 2π
ˆ −j ϕ̂ F }
⎢ ⎥⎢ ⎥
⎢ t0 t1n2 ··· K ⎥⎢
···
ˆ 0 ) = Re{ξ̇e
⎢ n2 tn2 ⎥ ⎢ 0 WN 0 ⎥ s
ȧ(t
⎥
B=⎢ ⎥⎢ ⎥
⎢ .
⎢ .. .. .. .. ⎥ ⎢ .
⎢ . .. .. .. ⎥ â
. . . ⎥
⎥⎢ . . . . ⎥ ˆ¨ −j ϕ̂ 2 ˆϕ̇ˆ
ˆ 0 ) = Im{ξe Fs } − 2ȧ
⎢ ⎥
ϕ̈(t
⎢ ⎥⎢ ⎥
⎣ ⎦⎣ ⎦
t0nC t1nC ··· tK 0 0 ··· WN â
nC
(3) where f1 stands for the fundamental frequency. The changes
where C = K + 1 is the number of cycles and WN is the of frequency are tracked by the second derivative of the phase
Fourier matrix (4) with harmonic phase factors ωN h
= ej2π/N ˆ 0 ). It is worth noting that no pre-processing and post-
ϕ̈(t
in each vector h = 0, . . . , N − 1, where N is the number of processing stages are needed when using the dynamic phasor
sample per cycle. Thus, the dimension for tK n in (3) is (2h +
model.
1)x(2h + 1), and tn is a diagonal matrix whose components In order to perform the real-time phasor estimation, the
are given by tn = −(K + 1)Ts (ns /2) to (K + 1)Ts (ns /2), Taylor-Fourier’s subspace can be implemented via the syn-
ns corresponding to each sample of the Taylor’s interpolating thesis and analysis equations (5) and (6), respectively. Notice
polynomial at each sampling time (Ts ). For that, the dimension that derivatives in (8) are estimated by the differentiators
for the Taylor contribution is Cx(2h+1)x(2h+1); likewise the components of the filters. In the following section, the Taylor-
dimension for the Fourier contribution is Cx(2h + 1)x(2h + Fourier subspace is used to estimate dynamic phasors in power
1). That is, the vectors of the Fourier matrix are harmonic systems.
modulators of the Taylor terms included in a K − th Taylor
III. TAYLOR -F OURIER ’ S S UBSPACE I MPLEMENTATION
polynomial, K > 0.
FOR P HASOR E STIMATION IN R EAL S IGNALS

⎡ The algorithmic implementation of the Taylor-Fourier’s

1 1 1 ··· 1
⎤
(N −1) ⎥
Subspace for phasor estimation in power system is accom-
⎢1 2
⎢ ωN ωN ··· ωN ⎥ plished and its details are given in the following. The dynamic
2 4 2(N −1) ⎥
1 ωN ωN ··· ωN
⎢
WN =⎢
⎢.
⎥ (4) phasors exhibit amplitude, phase, frequency and ROCOF,
⎢. .. .. .. .. ⎥
which are quantified along time.
⎣. . . . .
⎥
⎦
(N −1) 2(N −1) (N −1)2
1 ωN ωN ··· ωN A. Description of the implementation
The columns of B contain the basis vectors for the TFS, Figure 1 represents a conceptual scheme of the DTFT im-
and the pseudoinverse of B is defined by B† = [BH B]−1 BH , plementation. The main blocks become: (i) voltage source; (ii)
where BH is the Hermitian matrix of B [13]. signal coupling; (iii) analog to digital conversion (AD7606);
Once the Taylor-Fourier subspace is defined the synthesis (iv) parallel communication protocol; (v) output interface; and
and analysis equations are established by (vi) database. The algorithm has been implemented in Python
programming language.
The voltage signal is taken from the power grid and passed
ŝ = Bξ̂, (5)
by a voltage transformer (isolate transformer), reducing from
ξ̂ = B† s, (6) 180 Vp to 3 Vp. Then, the analog signal is converted to
digital by means of Analog-to-Digital converter (ADC), which
where B is the Taylor-Fourier matrix, ŝ is the reconstructed receives control signals from the Raspberry Pi-embedded
signal from the estimated TF coefficients (ξ̂), and s is the platform; those signals in Fig. 2 are programming according
measured signal. The vector ξ̂ contains the estimated TF to the timing diagram of the AD7606 (see more details in
coefficients and their derivatives, according to [12], which are the datasheet [14]), guaranteeing a sample rate of 33 samples
 Fig. 1. Block diagram of the real-time implementation via Taylor-Fourier’s subspace.

per cycle at 60 Hz, this corresponds to a sampling frequency dynamic phasor estimates are computed. Finally, the GUI
of 1980 Hz. Then, the output digital data from the ADC is exhibits such estimates.
transmitted through a parallel communication protocol with
16 bits of resolution. The ADC sampling rate is up to 200 Start
kSPS. A data conversion process is required to convert from
binary to decimal, which it is possible due to the analog inputs. Data selection

Binary-decimal
conversion

Windowed signal

DTFT

Amplitude Phase Frequency Decaying ROCOF

Data back up
(Data base)

GUI

Fig. 3. Scheme of the DTFT implementation.

In order to create the database after the phasor parameters

Fig. 2. Control signals for the ADC.
The digital processing consists in implementing the Taylor-
Fourier subspace on the Raspberry Pi’s CPU. This is accom-
plished according to the flowchart displayed in Fig. 3, and
taking into consideration 5-8. Raspberry Pi 3 B is equipped
with a 4-core processor ARM Cortex-A53, running up to 1.2
GHz with an internal clock and memory RAM of 1 GB. Once
the digital processing starts, an array of the acquired signal
is built into the Raspberry Pi in order to provide the sliding-
window, which it is rectangular with 1980 Hz of sampling
frequency for the signal. Thereby, each sliding-window yields
input signal’ estimates and provides its phasor information.
Each new sample is included into the input array, and the
are processed, it is assigned a time-stamp to each set of
estimates. The database in Fig. 4 is structured using three
tables (one per phase) represented in columns, which store
10 blocks of estimates per second for each phase with their
corresponding time-stamp that is equal to 1 s. This task is
carried out by the database management system, well-known
as MySQL. For instance, Fig. 4 illustrates two blocks of phasor
parameters in phase A, the first block of data consist of:
Time-stamp (Time), Amplitude (Am 0), Phase angle(Ph 0),
Frequency (Fre 0), Decaying (Dec 0), and ROCOF (Ro 0).
Once the results are stored in a database, it is possible
to extract them in order to show them in the Graphic- User
Interface (GUI) designed in Fig. 5 by using the PyQT library
from Python.
 Fig. 5. Interface based on Python.
Fig. 4. Database for the implementation.
B. Interface based on PyQT
The users interface is built on the PyQT programming
platform, see in Fig. 5. The following elements are used:
(i) programming structures; (ii) mathematics tools, (iii) array
of data; (iv) data processing tools. Such elements carry out
the data processing and their displaying. Particularly, libraries
as NumPy and Matplotlib facilitates the TFS’ matrix imple-
mentation. The implementation in PyQT takes advantage of
the visual environment over the structured code, allowing the
direct interaction between computational processing in real-
time, user interface, dynamic graphs, and back-up in database.
IV. E XPERIMENTAL RESULTS FOR SIMULATED AND REAL
SIGNALS
In this section, experimental results are discussed. These are
coming from the designed interface. Two experimental tests
have been regarded to perform the passor estimation. First,
three simulated signals using NumPy library. Second, an actual
instantaneous voltage signal stemming from the power grid is
acquired in real-time. For both tests, the DTFT will provide
estimates for: amplitude, phase angle, frequency, ROCOF, and
decaying.
A. Performance with Simulated Signals
In this case, the simulated signals in Fig. 6 consist of three
sinusoid with amplitudes equal to 2, 3, and 4 and phases equal
to 0 ◦ , 240 ◦ , and 120 ◦ . Then, the DTFT is defined through
the following parameters: K = 3, F s = 1980 Hz. The Taylor-
Fourier subspace allows to extract phasor components at 60.00
Hz, and the corresponding frequency, ROCOF for each phase
signal, and their time evolution, through the strategy described
in Fig. 3.
Thus, with the aim to provide the TFS estimates, the emu-
lated oscillation signal is fed into the Raspberry Pi-embedded
system, where a rectangular window that advances sample by
sample for extracting the main parameters of the emulated
oscillating signal is used, Fig. 1. After the TFS is applied,
Fig. 7 shows amplitude, phase angle, and frequency estimates
estimated via the TaylorFourier’s subspace, with K = 3. It is
notable that the estimates are quite precise for those signals,
since the actual and estimated parameters are the same.
 in Fig. 7(a), lasting 8 cycles at 60 Hz and measuring 3 Vp,
corresponding to 180 Vp at the power grid. Notice that exists
slight variations in amplitude and frequency, Figs. 8(b) and
8(d), respectively; which are own of the electrical network.
Despite this, the phase angle estimate in Fig. 8(c) does not
present any changes. As can be seen in Fig. 8, the attained
estimates are quite similar to the parameters of the acquired
sinusoid signal.
On the other hand, it is important to remark that the samping
rate of the signal is one of the most determinant factor,
when the phasor estimation process is accomplished, since this
Fig. 6. Simulated signals. affects the estimates. Given that the Raspberry Pi embedded
platform has an operating system, the processor’s speed is
varying, depending on the temperature and other processes
into the background, which cause variations of the sampling
rate. To deal with this issue, a fixed frequency is established
at 1.0 GHz, getting more stability at the execution time.
V. C ONCLUSION
Real-time implementation of the Taylor-Fourier subspace
has been successfully conveyed for obtaining dynamic phasors.
The development has been tested for simulated and real
signals, exhibiting that the real-time is reached due to the
execution time is guaranteed by the Raspberry Pi’s processor
speed. Thanks to the uniform sampling rate provided by the
(a)
ADC, the TFS is capable to provide estimates for Amplitude,
phase, frequency, ROCOF, and decaying, every time step.
Thus, the TFS represents a powerful and reliable tool for real-
time phasor estimation due to the advantages of the estimation
process.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors acknowledge financial support from the Project
Support Program for Research and Technological Innova-
tion of UNAM (DGAPA, PAPIIT-2016) through the project
IA105817. They gratefully acknowledge support from ”Red
(b) Temática Sistemas Eléctricos de Potencia y Redes Inteligentes
No. 294570” (In Spanish).
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(d)

Fig. 8. Phasor estimates via the Taylor-Fourier’s subspace for real signal. (a)
real signal; (b) Amplitude; (c) phase angle; and (d) frequency.