Gapless Power-Quality Disturbance Recorder

This paper presents and discusses the concepts of a gapless-power-quality disturbance recorder (G-PQDR) and a novelty detector. In the G-PQDR, power signals are divided into continuous frames and the energy difference between an actual frame and a reference frame is used for comparison. If the current frame is different from the reference frame, it will be recorded in the equipment and it becomes the new reference frame; otherwise, the frame is discarded and the frequency of the fundamental component is stored. The G-PQDR is able to detect and record the waveforms of the previously known PQ disturbances as well as those of the PQ disturbances not yet observed in power systems, thanks to the novelty detection concept. This characteristic is important in the context of smart grids where hidden disturbances can be detected by this methodology. For efficient data storage by minimizing the volume of the data stored, the G-PQDR uses lossy and lossless compressors. This paper describes the entire process of detection and compression, and compares the performance of the proposed method with that of a commercial-power-quality data recorder. In addition, some of the prototype implementation details are presented.