Patent ID: 6360178
Filing Date: 2002-03-19
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
For use in estimating the direction to a disturbance source in a power system, an apparatus comprising:a voltage transducer coupleable to the power system and operative to produce a first signal representative of a voltage within the power system; a current transducer coupleable to the power system and operative to produce a second signal representative of a current within the power system; and a logic circuit coupled to the voltage transducer and the current transducer, the logic circuit being operative to calculate a disturbance quantity based upon the first and second signals, the logic circuit using the disturbance quantity to estimate the direction to the disturbance source, and wherein the estimate of the direction indicates one of a forward direction and a behind direction and the disturbance quantity comprises a first measure of an initial peak excursion of a disturbance energy signal and a second measure of a total disturbance energy, the logic circuit further comprising: a weighting factor; a processing circuit coupled to receive the first measure, the second measure and the weighting factor, the processing circuit operative to produce a result by comparing the first measure combined with the weighting factor to the second measure, and to selectively estimate the direction to the disturbance source based on the polarity of the first measure if the result has a first value, and based on the polarity of the second measure if result has a second value.