Wavelet group method of data handling for fault prediction in electrical power insulators

Abstract

Electric power is increasingly being used in the globalized day-to-day and keeping the electric power system running is necessary. Insulators are important components of the electric power system. In case of failure in these components, there may be disconnections and, consequently, no electricity. Contaminated insulators can develop irreversible failures if they are not inspected. One equipment used for the inspection of the electric power system is the ultrasound, which generates an audible noise based on a time series that is used to identify possible failures. The time series forecast can be used for possible prediction of the development of failure. In this paper, a hybrid method that uses Wavelet Energy Coefficient (WEC) for feature extraction and Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) for time series prediction is proposed, being defined as Wavelet GMDH. For comparison and validation of the proposed method, a benchmark is made with well-established algorithms such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). For a fairer analysis, these algorithms are also evaluated based on the same data extraction with WEC. The proposed method proved to have good accuracy comparing with LSTM and ANFIS, and is much faster than the compared methods.