The Simulation Study of the Influence of the Conformal Array Vector Curvature on the Direction-finding Precision of the PD Source

Abstract

Ultrasonic array detection is a new detection method with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and wide range of application. The traditional planar array sensor can’t completely correspond to the electrical equipment with irregular surface in that the conformal array sensor is the top priority. In practical detection, the different curvatures of the electrical equipment lead to diverse effect on the precision of the partial discharge source. Therefore, it is necessary to study the variation rule of direction finding accuracy under different curvature of carrier. In this paper, the ultrasonic detection of conformal array sensors based on different curvature radii is launched. A direction finding algorithm named EULER-MUSIC for conformal array sensors is proposed, and a simulation study of the performance of the algorithm under different curvature radii is carried out. The simulation results show that when the curvature of carrier is 0.4 m, the direction finding error is about 10°, in addition, when the curvature of carrier is less than 0.4 m, the direction finding error of partial discharge source decreases greatly, and when the curvature of carrier is greater than 0.4 m, the direction finding error tends to be stable.