Practical Evaluation of Electromagnetic Time Reversal to Locate Partial Discharges on Power Networks in the Presence of Noise

The paper proposes an analysis of the performance of a new method to localize Partial Discharges (PDs) on power cables under noisy conditions. The new method is based on the use of the Electromagnetic Time Reversal (EMTR) theory and the Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) numerical method. The investigations have been carried out in a voltage reduced experimental set up, using a RG223 coaxial cable. The effectiveness of the EMTR-based method has been evaluated with different noise levels injected into the cable in order to determine how the method works under noisy conditions. The experimental results have shown that the EMTR method is able to localize PD source with an error that is always less than 1%. Averaging is used over several PD signal recordings at the observation point when the reflected signal is hidden by the noise.