Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference (AUPEC 2004)
26-29 September 2004, Brisbane, Australia 1
Recognition of Partial Discharge Waveshape
Patterns for Gas Insulated Switchgear
C. S. Chang, K. H. Lee and C. Chang
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore
Abstract — Early warning system based on the detection of
UHF SF6 partial discharge (PD) signals is a necessary means for
the protection of Gas-Insulated Switchgear (GIS) in service as
well as the power system to which it is connected. In order to
ensure the safe and reliable operation of GIS, it is important to
adopt an effective diagnosing method, which is able to identify
signals of harmful defects promptly. Unlike approaches such as
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform
(DWT) based techniques, a novel approach to extract
discriminative features directly from time-domain UHF signals is
introduced in this paper. With the proposed approach, UHF
signal waveforms of different sources are partitioned and
quantified so that the harmful (SF6 PD) and not-so-harmful (air
corona) UHF signals are classified promptly. The investigation is
based on the experiment data measured from a 300 KV GIS with
encouraging results, which proves the usefulness of this proposed
approach.
Index Terms—Gas-Insulated Substation, Partial Discharge,
Waveshape analysis, Pattern Recognition.
1. INTRODUCTION
The use of Gas-insulated Switchgear (GIS) is being globally
increased due to its compact size, unaffected by atmospheric
conditions, low maintenance and high reliability [1]. SF6 is a
nontoxic and nonflammable gas, which overcomes many of the
limitations of the conventional open-type HV switchgear. In
addition, it has a dielectric strength two to three times that of air,
and this ratio increases with increasing pressure [2]. However,
GIS has problems with the sharp deterioration of the gas
dielectric strength particularly when its voltage reaches to EHV
level [3]. The radical deterioration of the GIS insulation is
mainly contributed by partial discharge (PD) occurred inside
the GIS chamber. PD occurring in SF6 gas is attributed by many
causes such as mechanical assembling faults, protrusions on the
enclosure and/or HV conductor as well as free metallic
particles left inside the GIS chamber. Hence, PD that occurs in
the GIS chamber due to the above defects may deteriorate the
dielectric strength of the SF6 gas, may lead to the breakdown of
the GIS or even the power system to which it is connected.
To prevent it happening, the detection of SF6 PD is an
approach to ensure the safe and reliable operation of GIS as
remedy can be done before deterioration of GIS continues. As
for the protection purpose, a PD monitoring system including
high sensitive sensors and efficient diagnosing algorithms is
attached to every GIS installation in conjunction with other
monitoring features such as self-checking, trend analysis of the
gas density and circuit-breaker conditions etc. Figure 1 shows
the placement of an UHF sensor on the enclosure of the GIS.
Electrostatic force Grounded tank
High voltage conductor
Metallic particle
PD sensor
Partial discharge
Electromagnetic wave
Sensor output
Figure 1: UHF sensor mounted on the enclosure of GIS
It is understood that the reliability of the early warning
system is dependent on the accuracy of the diagnosing system
to identify various UHF signals. Therefore, it is crucial for a PD
diagnostic system to have reliable functions of differentiating
SF6 PD from air corona and other interferences. Comparing to
the UHF signals of air corona, signals originated from SF6 PD
contain richer high frequency components as shown in Figure
2. According to the nature of the UHF signal patterns, it is
understandable that dominant features of a UHF signal are
embedded in its large resonance, which occurs about hundreds
of nanoseconds long after its initial surge. Meanwhile, it is also
well known that a number of Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and
Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) based techniques have
been widely applied to the classification of various PD sources.
When working with these approaches, FFT and Wavelet
functions have to be used to process and transform the
time-domain UHF signals into frequency domain or relevant
Wavelet pattern, through which discriminative features are
calculated. The classification is then achieved by finding
discriminative features based on the transformed patterns [6-8].
However, complicated FFT or DWT transformation could be
avoided, if a feature with adequate discriminative ability can be
found and extracted directly from time-domain UHF signal
waveforms. In such a way, the diagnosing process will be
simplified and accelerated. Hence, a new approach to identify
UHF signal sources directly through the time-domain
waveforms is proposed in this paper, which aims to improve the
efficiency of the PD diagnosing system. The data used for this
investigation is measured from a 300 kV GIS. Encouraging
results have been obtained for the successful identification of
UHF signals that originated inside the GIS chamber.
 2

2. METHODOLOGY comparison of the above waveforms, it is possible to

a. Characteristic UHF signal Waveforms
The Ultra High Frequency (UHF) signals captured by the
UHF sensors in the experiment are arranged into 3 groups
according to their origins, namely air corona from outside
bushing, SF6 PD occurred inside the GIS chamber and
unknown interferences from outside of the GIS chamber. The
typical waveforms of these signals are shown in Figure 2. As
explained, the aim of this investigation is to identify SF6 PD
signals. Hence, all the acquired UHF signals are rearranged into
two categories for the classification analysis.
discriminate waveforms of SF6 PD from others due to SF6 PD
signals contain higher frequency components. In the
experiment, the triggering threshold of the acquisition system
was set well above the background noise so that only large
UHF signals were captured. Once triggered, a set of UHF
signal data was captured and saved. The number of samples
recorded for each acquisition is 5000, which is long enough to
cover the main oscillation of the UHF signal. [4, 5].
b. Pre-selection of UHF signals
Focusing on the large amplitude portions from the UHF
waveforms is an efficient way for obtaining features with
adequate discriminating ability. In addition, the pre-selection
algorithm ensures to achieve the efficiency in the
discrimination of UHF signals because characteristics of UHF
signals are embedded in its large oscillation. Criteria of the
pre-selection are based on: (a) the threshold value determined
by background noise and (b) shoot up rate, which is a measure
of the radical increase of the signal amplitude. With a threshold
value, any amplitude larger than threshold value is a sign of the
presence of PD activity. Shoot up rate allows recognition of the
initial surge of a UHF signal. After pre-selection, the
waveforms are shown in Figure 3 and they are the
corresponding waveforms shown in Figure 2. Each the
pre-selected waveshape preserves the characteristics of the
UHF signal [1].
0.005
(a)
Am plitude (V)
Amplitude (V)

0.000

-0.005

-0.010
0 64 128 192 256
Time Series
Sample Number
0.006
(b)
Am plitude (V)
Amplitude (V)

0.003

0.000

-0.003

-0.006
0 64 128 192 256
Time Series
Sample Number
0.008
(c)
Am plitude (V)
Amplitude (V)

0.004

0.000

Figure 2: (a) Corona; (b) PD in SF6; (c) Unknown Interference -0.004

-0.008
Apparently, the difference among the waveforms of UHF 0 64 128
Time Series
192 256
Sample Number
signals of air corona, SF6 PD and unknown interference is quite
obvious as illustrated in Figure 2. According to the initial visual Figure 3: Pre-selected signals: (a) Corona; (b) PD in SF6; (c)
Unknown Interference
 3

Normalization is another important step after pre-selection. dividing the sampling period into 4 equal sub-periods, each
It is performed by linearly mapping the pre-selected signal contains 64 samples. Likewise, the magnitude axis is divided
samples into the value range of [-1, 1]. It is based on each into 4 equal portions, each covering a normalized range of 0.5.
pre-selection waveform to make sure that the distribution of the
pre-selected signal portion is dependent on the waveshape only
and is thus ready for the extraction of the discriminative feature.
The scatter plots shown in Figure 4 are the normalized
waveforms of those in Figure 3.

1.0
Normalized Amplitude

(a)
Norm alized Am plitude

0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0
0 64 128 192 256
Time SeriesNumber
Sample

1.0
Normalized Amplitude

(b)
Norm alized Am plitude

0.5

0.0
Figure 5: 16 windows partition
-0.5

-1.0
0 64 128 192 256
Time Series
Sample Number
1.0
Normalized Amplitude

(c)
Norm alized Am plitude

0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0
0 64 128 192 256
Time Series
Sample Number

Figure 4: Scattered plots: (a) Corona; (b) PD in SF6; (c) Unknown

c. Extraction of Special Characteristics

The extraction of the discriminative feature is based on the
16 partition windows as illustrated in Figure 5. The calculated
feature is a 4x4 vector, namely the Sampling Counting Ratio
(SCR) which is the discriminative feature introduced along
with the proposed method to differentiate various types of UHF
signals.
3. SAMPLE COUNTING RATIO (SCR)
a. Principle of Sample Counting Ratio (SCR)
In conjunction with the partition arrangement as shown in
Figure 5, SCR quantifies the pre-selected UHF signal
waveforms to allow fingerprints being made to represent each
acquired UHF signal. However, the way to quantify the
waveform is closely associated with the arrangement of the
partition. Figure 6 shows that 16 (4x4) partition windows are
established to enclose the 256 samples. This can be achieved by
Figure 6: Window for calculation of SCR
b. Calculation of SCR
As shown in Figure 6, Ri,j represents the counting ratio in
each partition window and each of the values represents the
distribution density at the particular partition window. When
Ri,j = 0, it means that the UHF waveform does not fall into
window (i, j). In general, the Ri,j can be calculated based on the
following formula.
Ri,j = sum of all sample points within partition window (i, j)
sum of all sample points within column j
According to the definition of SCR, the calculated Ri,j is

restricted by the following conditions:
4 proportional to the error. After being trained, the MLP network
∑R
i =1
i, j = 1 , and Ri , j ≤ 1
SF6 PD contains higher frequency components comparing to
corona UHF signals. As for the entire partition, the number
non-zeros will be more for the SF6 PD signals than those for
other signals. On the other hand, the calculated non-zero values
for SF6 PD signals are smaller in general than those for other
signals due to the relative even distribution of the SF6 PD
signals. This phenomenon can be observed by comparing
sample distributions shown in Figures 7 and 8.
Figure 7: SCR for SF6 PD
Figure 8: SCR for Corona
c. Using Neural Network for classification
The neural network based classifier used for this
investigation is a typical 4-layer MLP neural network with
back-propagation (BP) training algorithm. It is a powerful
pattern classifier trained with error correction learning method,
which is based on the known desired response. In order to
improve the efficiency of training, it is important to set the
parameters of the MLP network specific to the application
requirement. The number of input processing elements is
determined according to the size of the feature as there are 16
Ri,j values. The number of processing elements in the first and
the second hidden layers are all set to 25 in this case and the
output layer is set to 1. The hyperbolic tangent is the type of
non-linear function selected for the processing elements of the
hidden and output layers. Based on the theory of gradient
descent learning, each weight in the network can be adapted by
correcting the present value of the weight with a term that is
proportional to the present input. The BP algorithm computes
4
the error of the output with respect to each weight in the
network and modifies each weight by a value that is
is able to classify the pre-processed UHF waveforms of various
types. The schematic diagram of the MLP network is shown in
Figure 9.
Figure 9: Schematic Diagram of MLP BP
The desired output values for SF6 PD and other sources are
set to 1 and -2 respectively. The desired outputs together with
the input feature are used to train the MLP neural network.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
a. General information of the data sets
There are totally 54 sets of UHF signal data acquired in the
laboratory. Some of them are generated by the SF6 PD (free
metallic particle on enclosure) while the others are produced by
either the air corona or unknown interferences. For the
convenience of analysis, each acquired UHF signals is tagged
with a sequential index number as illustrated in Table 1.
According to the types of signal sources, the acquired UHF
signals are arranged and tabulated in different columns.
Index for SF6 PD Index for Corona Index for Unknown
Signals Signals Interferences
4, 5, 6, 14, 19, 20, 1, 7, 9, 10, 11, 2, 3, 8, 17, 21, 24,
28, 30, 47, 48, 49, 12, 13, 15, 16, 25, 26, 31, 32, 33,
50, 51, 52, 53, 54 18, 22, 23, 27, 35, 36, 37, 39
29, 34, 38, 40,
41, 42, 43, 44,
45, 46
Table 1: Details of the UHF signal sets of data
As seen in the table, each column represents one category of
UHF signal. During the training phase, all the data sets are fed
into the MLP network for training. However, the training
outcome was evaluated by a cost function, which is the mean
squared difference between the calculated and desired output.
The output error is constantly checked against the predefined
threshold value, which is the learning termination criterion and
was 0.02 in this case. After training, the MLP outputs for all the
data sets are calculated for classification. The identified UHF
 5

signals originated from the SF6 PD are highlighted in red 5. CONCLUSION

shown in Table2, which completely matches the signal index A novel method to discriminate SF6 PD from outside
number appeared in the left column of Table 1. In addition to interferences has been proposed and proved for its reliability.
the identified ones, the rest of UHF signals are generated from
This proposed method is much easier to implement comparing
non-harmful sources. The classification results are also plotted
to the methods based on FFT and DWT techniques. This is due
in Figure 10 in which it shows that all samples of SF6 PD are
to the discriminative features are extracted directly from the
identified through the outputs of the trained MLP network.
Based on the achieved results, it may be concluded that the time-domain waveshapes without the need of transformation
proposed approach is an effective feature having adequate into frequency or other more complicated domains. The results
discriminative ability to identify SF6 PD signals. show that accurate classification of UHF signals has been
achieved with no single misclassification. The results have also
Index Value Inde Value Index Value proven that the newly introduced SCR is a useful and effective
x discriminative feature to identify UHF signals of different
1 -1.7746 19 0.9737 37 -1.7134 types. Compared to FFT and DWT based approach, the
2 -2.0183 20 1.0286 38 -1.9654 proposed one has a potential of not only speeding up the signal
3 -1.9336 21 -2.2291 39 -1.4587 diagnosing process but also benefiting from low-cost
4 0.9991 22 -2.0033 40 -0.4451 implementation. With this new approach, more efficient PD
5 0.8576 23 -1.8282 41 -2.0133 monitoring and evaluating system can be developed for GIS.
6 1.0003 24 -2.2312 42 -2.0152
7 -2.0065 25 -2.2770 43 -2.0102 6. REFERENCES
8 -1.95 26 -2.5114 44 -2.0061
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Figure 10: Scatter plot of the classification results ?bad

quality – pls ask Kok Hong to supply new one!