Locating Faults in Thyristor-Based LCC-HVDC Transmission Lines Using Single End Measurements and Boosting Ensemble

Abstract

Most of the fault location methods in high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines usemethods which require signals from both ends. It will be difficult to estimate fault location if the signal recorded is not correct due to communication problems.Hence a robust method is required which can locate fault with minimum error. In this work, faults are located using boosting ensembles in HVDC transmission lines based on single terminal direct current (DC) signals. The signals are processed to obtain input features that vary with the fault distance. These input features are obtained by taking maximum of half cycle current signals after fault and minimum of half cycle voltage signals after fault from the root mean square of DC signals. The input features are input to a boosting ensemble for estimating the location of fault. Boosting ensemble method attempts to correct the errors from the previous models and find outputs by combining all models. The boosting ensemble method has been also compared with the decision tree method and thebagging-based ensemble method. Fault locations are estimated using three methods and compared to obtain an optimal method. The boosting ensemble method has better performance than all the other methods in locating the faults. It also validated varying fault resistance, smoothing reactors, boundary faults, pole to ground faults and pole to pole faults. The advantage of the method is that no communication link is needed. Another advantage is that it allowsreach setting up to 99.9% and does not exhibitthe problem of over-fitting. Another advantage is that the percentage error in locating faults is within 1% and has a low realization cost. The proposed method can be implemented in HVDC transmission lines effectively as an alternative to overcome the drawbacks of traveling wave methods.