The real-time condition monitoring system of gapless arrester based on ZigBee protocol and third harmonic leakage current as indicator parameters

Monitoring the condition of arrester in service have been presented in the past. Several methods of monitoring the condition of surge arrester were introduced by many researchers. Some and almost all the methods are based on measuring the leakage current. The goal of this study is to design a portable arrester condition monitoring system which is capable of performing arrester health analysis without the need for a voltage source reference — the design based on the previous research which introduces the new method to discriminant the resistive leakage current from total leakage current. The method for diagnosing arrester health is only with the leakage current waveform. The advantage of not needing the voltage reference is that the system can ultimately be used in the field where access a voltage reference about 150 kV is not practical. The design employs a ZigBee wireless protocol as well as a microprocessing based system utilizing an Arduino microcontroller. The ground side current from the arrester is fed through a resistor, which can then be used as a read voltage. The LabVIEW based graphical user interface was prepared to analyze an arrester's data. The user connects the GUI to the Arduino via ZigBee, samples the waveform from an arrester and then additional data processing is executed. The main part of this processing involves the modified shifted current method on the sampled waveform. Upon conclusion, the user is left with only the resistive component of the arrester leakage current, which is displayed in both the time and frequency domains for analysis. (paper)