Patent ID: 7877218

Claim:
A power distribution substation, comprising: a signal sampler configured to sample a signal on a communications link, the signal sampler further configured to determine a noise level and a signal level of the sample and to sample a plurality of signals at predetermined intervals; a comparator configured to compare a critical value with a first sum of signal and noise of the sample, the critical value based upon on the signal level and the noise level and having a value substantially similar to a second sum of signal and noise at which probability density functions of false signal detection and false outage detection on the communications link are substantially similar; a binomial probability analyzer configured to calculate a binomial probability of false outage and a binomial probability of false signal detection of the sample and the previous N samples; and a vote register configured to store a vote value based upon the comparison of the first sum of signal and noise of the sample to the critical value, the vote value corresponding to whether the sample is indicative of an outage or a signal detection and the vote register configured to store a plurality of vote values corresponding to the sample and the previous N samples, wherein the vote value can be assigned a binary value corresponding to an outage or a restore.