Feasibility of fractal-based methods for visualization of power system disturbances

In this paper, an application of a fractal-based approach is proposed to de tect power quality disturbances. In the proposed method, a fractal number c omputation is embedded within the detection procedure. These computed fract als are refined through the moving average technique, and then compared wit h the predetermined threshold in order to signal encountered events. In thi s way, the characteristics of non-stationary disturbances can be more close ly monitored. The transient behavior, cavities and discontinuities in the s ignals can be all investigated. The proposed method has been tested on vari ous disturbances, including voltage sag, voltage swell, momentary interrupt ion, oscillatory transient and harmonic distortion scenarios. The results h ave demonstrated the feasibility of the approach for visualization of power system disturbances. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.