Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.

Grounding grids are essential for ensuring the safety of power substations, but their performance can degrade due to corrosion, fractures, or other faults. Traditional fault diagnosis methods are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and require physical access to substations, posing safety risks. This p...

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Main Authors: Aamir Qamar, Zahoor Uddin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2025-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325845
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author Aamir Qamar
Zahoor Uddin
author_facet Aamir Qamar
Zahoor Uddin
author_sort Aamir Qamar
collection DOAJ
description Grounding grids are essential for ensuring the safety of power substations, but their performance can degrade due to corrosion, fractures, or other faults. Traditional fault diagnosis methods are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and require physical access to substations, posing safety risks. This paper introduces a drone-based approach for magnetic field sensing to diagnose grounding grid faults, significantly reducing operational risks and improving efficiency. However, the movement of the drone introduces time-varying electromagnetic interference (EMI) from substation equipment and the drone itself, complicating the isolation of grounding grid signals. To address this problem, we propose a time-varying un-mixing technique combined with the Fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA) algorithm to effectively suppress the EMI and extract the grounding grid signals. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed technique in separating grounding grid signals under time-varying conditions, outperforming the FastICA algorithm by 96.36% and the Independent Vector Analysis (IVA) by 41.17% at a block length of 4000 and [Formula: see text]. These results highlight the robustness and applicability of the proposed approach for real-world grounding grid fault diagnosis, ensuring accuracy and safety in EMI-rich environments. However, the performance of the proposed technique degrades at higher values of [Formula: see text], which represents the speed of the flying drone.
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spelling doaj-art-e786cfa3adbc4602b0f3f300d04d44e22025-08-20T02:10:22ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01206e032584510.1371/journal.pone.0325845Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.Aamir QamarZahoor UddinGrounding grids are essential for ensuring the safety of power substations, but their performance can degrade due to corrosion, fractures, or other faults. Traditional fault diagnosis methods are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and require physical access to substations, posing safety risks. This paper introduces a drone-based approach for magnetic field sensing to diagnose grounding grid faults, significantly reducing operational risks and improving efficiency. However, the movement of the drone introduces time-varying electromagnetic interference (EMI) from substation equipment and the drone itself, complicating the isolation of grounding grid signals. To address this problem, we propose a time-varying un-mixing technique combined with the Fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA) algorithm to effectively suppress the EMI and extract the grounding grid signals. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed technique in separating grounding grid signals under time-varying conditions, outperforming the FastICA algorithm by 96.36% and the Independent Vector Analysis (IVA) by 41.17% at a block length of 4000 and [Formula: see text]. These results highlight the robustness and applicability of the proposed approach for real-world grounding grid fault diagnosis, ensuring accuracy and safety in EMI-rich environments. However, the performance of the proposed technique degrades at higher values of [Formula: see text], which represents the speed of the flying drone.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325845
spellingShingle Aamir Qamar
Zahoor Uddin
Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.
PLoS ONE
title Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.
title_full Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.
title_fullStr Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.
title_full_unstemmed Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.
title_short Drone-assisted time-varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids.
title_sort drone assisted time varying magnetic field analysis for fault diagnosis in grounding grids
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325845
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