## 1 Introduction
However, the author of Reference [19] only took the case of single fault into consideration when designing the mathematical model of distribution networks; if there are multiple faults at the same time, the mathematical model is not applicable. Meanwhile, the method proposed in Reference [20] is only applicable to the opened-loop distribution networks, when the distribution network is under closed-loop operation, it cannot locate multiple faults occur at the same time. Reference [21] proposed a fault segment location algorithm based on Bayesian estimation which can solve the problem of single fault and multiple faults. It also uses the overcurrent information collected by FTUs, but this method requires high accuracy of information. When the status information is lost, it will output wrong results, so this algorithm does not have good fault tolerance performance. In [22], a fault location method based on Improved Cuckoo Search Algorithm was proposed. The author considered the fault tolerance of fault location and the possible signal loss condition. However, this method cannot detect the nodes with information loss--this will lead to it missing a lot of valuable information. For example, if a piece of equipment often loses information, this indicates that the equipment may need to be repaired. In the above references, each of the methods has some shortcomings. In this paper, considering all the shortcomings of the methods mentioned above, a novel faulted section location method for distribution network based on status information of fault-indicating equipments is introduced. The five novelties of this method are as follows:  
1. The method in this paper is different from others which analyzed electrical quantity. It uses status information of fault-indicating equipment, so it does not need to analyze and calculate any electrical parameters, and it is not affected by the fault type or fault resistance. 2. A line list is proposed in the method and it can be constructed automatically to represent the topology of the distribution network and status information of fault-indicating equipment. Moreover, it can be updated automatically when the topology of distribution network changes. Therefore, it is suitable for the distribution networks with frequent topology structure changes. A topology search algorithm is proposed in the method to locate the faulted section; it is not only applicable for single fault, but also for multiple faults on different branches. Simulation results indicate that the proposed topology search algorithm is suitable for distribution networks with distributed generations. Therefore, the fault location method in this paper is applicable for solving complex fault conditions in distribution networks. 4. Considering that the loss of information may lead to errors in the line list, an information loss detection algorithm is proposed in the method to detect and correct the wrong status of fault-indicating equipments. It can eliminate the possibility of a local optimal solution for the topology search algorithm in advance, so it greatly improves the accuracy of fault location results. 5. Based on amount of simulation results, the proposed fault location method has an advantage that the running time of algorithms does not necessarily increase when the node scale is expanded. The remainder of this paper is arranged as follows. Section 2.1 defines the status of fault-indicating equipment according to the fault current direction. In order to describe the topology structure of power distribution lines and the status of fault-indicating equipments, a method for constructing the line list is proposed in Section 2.2. Section 3.1 proposes a topology search algorithm to locate the faulted section, which can deal with single fault and multiple faults on different branches well. In Section 3.2, considering the possibility of information loss, an information loss detection method is proposed to correct the line list.