Development of Fault Detector for Series Arc Fault in Low Voltage DC Distribution System using Wavelet Singular Value Decomposition and State Diagram

Abstract

It is well known that series arc faults in Low Voltage DC (LVDC) distribution system occur at unintended points of discontinuity within an electrical circuit. These faults can make circuit breakers not respond timely due to low fault current. It, therefore, is needed to detect the series fault for protecting circuits from electrical fires. This paper proposes a novel scheme to detect the series arc fault using Wavelet Singular Value Decomposition (WSVD) and state diagram. In this paper, the fault detector developed is designed by using three criterion factors based on the RMS value of Singular value of Approximation (SA), Sum of the absolute value of Detail (SD), and state diagram. LVDC distribution system including AC/DC and DC/DC converter is modeled to verify the proposed scheme using ElectroMagnetic Transient Program (EMTP) software. EMTP/MODELS is also utilized to implement the series arc model and WSVD. Simulation results according to various conditions clearly show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.