Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028

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Electric Power Systems Research
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ epsr
A distance relay algorithm based on the phase comparison principle
Sini sa J. Zubi c
a,
, Milenko B. Djuri c
b
a
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Banjaluka, Patre 5, 78000 Banjaluka, Bosnia and Herzegovina
b
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra 73, 11120 Belgrade, Serbia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 20 May 2011
Received in revised form7 May 2012
Accepted 14 May 2012
Available online 29 June 2012
Keywords:
Distance relays
Time-domain phase comparator
Phasor-domain phase comparator
a b s t r a c t
In this paper we propose a distance relay algorithm based on a time-domain phase comparator with a
smaller computational burden than the traditional phasor-domain based algorithms. The phase com-
parator used in the time-domain algorithm is based on the average power on a half and full-cycle data
window. The algorithm includes a lter which mitigates decaying DC-offset in the current as well as
the capacitive coupled voltage transformer transients. The algorithm is compared to an algorithm based
on the phasor-domain approach with full-cycle DFT. Both algorithms are tested on various fault loca-
tions, fault resistances, load directions, inception angles and SIR. This paper also includes analysis of the
complex frequency response of the complete time-domain algorithm, and how the protected zone for a
chosen operating characteristic depends on the line load and SIR.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Power transmission lines are the vital links between generat-
ing plants and customers. These lines are exposed to various types
of faults, and distance relays are widely used for transmission line
protection. The distance protection is based on the principle of the
linear dependence between the value of the impedance measured
by the distance relay and the distance between locations of the
relay and the fault [1]. Distance relay algorithms are usually based
on using phasors at the fundamental frequency. This is the phasor-
domain approach where voltage and current phasors are either
compared [2,3], or used for measuring the fault impedance [412].
Phasors are computed by using some of the well-known methods
of signal processing, such as: Fourier method [1315], least error
squares [1619], wavelet method [2023], and Newtons method
[2426].
In modern numerical distance relays phasors do not need to
be calculated. Instead of the phasor-domain approach, the relay
operation is evaluated in the time-domain using instantaneous
voltages and currents. Time-domain based relaying algorithms are
introduced in [27], where a time-domain comparator is based on
characteristic of an electromechanical cylinder unit, and a cross-
polarized MHO characteristic is used. Results of this approach are
presented in [2,3,28] where it is shown that the comparator based
on the cylinder unit has an inverse characteristic that allows for
fast clearing of close-in faults, but clearing faults at the end of the
protected zone is very slow(up to four fundamental cycles).

Corresponding author. Tel.: +387 65 861 441.

E-mail addresses: zubic@etfbl.net (S.J. Zubi c), mdjuric@etf.rs (M.B. Djuri c).
This paper compares a distance relay algorithm based on the
time-domain phase comparator and a distance relay algorithm
based on the phasor-domain phase comparator. In order to achieve
fast operating time, in the time-domain approach we used a simple
phase comparator based on the average power (AP [29]) instead of
the comparator basedonthe cylinder unit [2,3,27,28]. The AP phase
comparator uses a half-fundamental cycle data windowthat allows
for fast operating time, but this phase comparator is affected by
even-order harmonics in the current when CT saturation occurs. In
order toeliminateimpact of even-order harmonics weusedthesec-
ond version of the time-domain algorithm with a full-cycle phase
comparator. We have shown that the proposed algorithmis as fast
as the phasor-domain algorithm based on DFT, yet it requires a
smaller computational burden.
Many tests with different fault locations, fault resistances,
inception angles, source impedance ratios (SIR) and line loads are
conducted to showthe algorithms security. We have also analyzed
very complex frequency response of the complete algorithmbased
on the time-domain phase comparator. Each result is compared
to the phasor-domain algorithm based on the full-cycle discrete
Fourier transformation, and both algorithms use the same digital
lter to eliminate decaying DC-offset [30].
2. MHO distance relay operating characteristics
It is convenient to display the operating characteristic for dis-
tance protection in the complex RX plane. We used an MHO
operatingcharacteristic (Fig. 1) that canbe achievedwithone phase
comparator with border angles 90

, because the average-power

(AP) phase comparator used inthe time-domainalgorithmhas bor-
der angles of 90

. The trip zone for the relay is the region inside

0378-7796/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2012.05.017
S.J. Zubic, M.B. Djuric / Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028 21
Fig. 1. Z plane representation of the MHO characteristics.
the circle. The line impedance is shown as a solid line stretch-
ing from the origin to the point labeled Z
L
, and the angle of the
line impedance is labeled
L
. The MHO characteristic is set to
give the relay a reach of 85% of the total line length (Z
P
). Fig. 1a
represents a self-polarized characteristic while Fig. 1b represents
a cross-polarized MHO characteristic. We use the self-polarized
characteristic only to explain relays reach, but we implemented
the cross-polarized characteristic in proposed algorithms because
it has better fault resistance coverage and better behavior when
close-in faults occurs. The self-polarized characteristic has two
xed dots, A and B in Fig. 1a, the line between A and B is the diam-
eter of the MHO circle (d). The angle of the operating characteristic
is labeled . In order to achieve better fault resistance coverage it is
necessary to use an MHO characteristic with a smaller angle than
the angle of the protected line
L
(angle <
L
). It should be con-
sidered that for the constant relay reach Z
p
, diameter d depends on
the angles
L
and :
d =
Z
p
cos(
L
)
=
Z
p
cos()
. (1)
The cross-polarized characteristic has only one xed dot, A,
while position B depends on pre-fault load, fault location, SIR and
fault resistance. Fig. 2 shows that in a case when line load increases
in a forward direction we can expect overreach, while for reverse
direction we can expect underreach. That means that for a chosen
cross-polarized characteristic we have to test the relays reach for
different pre-fault conditions. Results for different angles , SIR,
fault resistances and load directions are presented in Section 5.
Fig. 2. Z plane representation of the cross-polarized MHO characteristics.
Table 1
Inputs to a cross-polarized MHO relay.
Type of fault Ur Ir U
pol
a-g Ua Ia +k
0
I
0
k
bc
(U
b
Uc)
b-g U
b
I
b
+k
0
I
0
kca(Uc Ua)
c-g Uc Ic +k
0
I
0
k
ab
(Ua U
b
)
a-b Ua U
b
Ia I
b
kc Uc
b-c U
b
Uc I
b
Ic ka Ua
c-a Uc Ua Ic Ia k
b
U
b
a,b,c phases; g ground; k
0
is a relay setting called residual compensation factor;
k
a,b,c
are chosen that U
pol
be in phase with Ur.
Table 2
The relationship between the time delay T in voltage signals and the angle of the
MHO characteristic (m=32).
Delay 3 4 5 6 7
(

) 33.75 45 56.25 67 78.75

T (ms) 1.875 2.5 3.125 3.75 4.375
The cross-polarized MHO operating characteristic can be imple-
mented in the phasor-domain using phasors V
1
and V
2
:
V
-
1
= e
j
U
-
pol
, (2)
V
-
2
= e
j
U
-
r
+I
-
r
d. (3)
The phasor V
1
is the polarizing quantity, while the phasor V
2
is the operating quantity that depends on the current, as well as
the voltage signal. Phasors U
r
, U
pol
and I
r
are functions of phase
voltages and currents on the protected transmission line and the
functions are dependent on the type of fault according to Table 1.
The self-polarized characteristic uses U
r
instead of U
pol
as a polar-
izing quantity.
In the phasor-domain approach, a distance relay calculates pha-
sors V
1
and V
2
from phasors U
r
, U
pol
and I
r
, then calculates the
phase difference =arg(V
1
) arg(V
2
). If a fault occurs (i.e. the fault
impedance Z =U
r
/I
r
falls into the region inside the circle fromFig. 1)
then the phase difference between V
1
and V
2
is:
|| >90

. (4)
In the other case, if the impedance falls out of the circle from
Fig. 1, the phase difference between V
1
and V
2
is:
|| <90

. (5)
Eqs. (2) and (3) can be written in the time-domain as:
v
1
(k) = u
pol
(k-delay), (6)
v
2
(k) = u
r
(k-delay) +d i
r
(k), (7)
where k represents kth sample at time t, delay is an integer that
changes the angle of the MHO characteristic . That indicates that
in the time-domain approach based on the phase comparator with
border angles 90

we can choose only a fewMHO characteristics

with angle fromthe equation:
= delay
360

m
, (8)
where m represents number of samples per fundamental cycle T
(Table 2 is given for m=32). Parameter delay also represents a
time shift T

that is caused by the angle in Eqs. (2) and (3):

T

= delay
T
m
= T

360

. (9)
The time shift T

can cause a time delay in the fault detection

because the algorithmdoes not use the latest voltage samples. We
could achieve the same operating characteristic making the time
shift appears in the current signal i
r
, but that would have a big-
ger impact on the operation speed since the rate of the change in
22 S.J. Zubic, M.B. Djuric / Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028
Fig. 3. Time-domain phase comparator based on the average power.
current at the moment of a fault is larger than the change in the
voltages. The tests in Section 5 showthat the proposed Eqs. (6) and
(7) provide a good operation speed for the time-domain algorithm.
The proposed distance relay algorithm is based on the use of
these Eqs. (6) and (7), and on a simple time-domain phase com-
parator that detects if || >90

.
2.1. Time-domain phase comparator
In this paper we applied a phase comparator based on the aver-
agepower, presentedin[29]. Thephasecomparator uses anaverage
value of the product of input signals p(k) =v
1
(k) v
2
(k) for determin-
ing their phase difference. It is well-known that the product of two
fundamental harmonics has two components: a component with
the double frequency (the reactive power component), and a con-
stant component that depends on the phase difference between
signals (the active power component). Negative values of the con-
stant (active power) component indicate that the phase difference
|| >90

, and distance relay must operate.

In Fig. 3 are shown signals v
1
(t) and v
2
(t) with a phase difference
=30

, and their product p(t) that has a positive average value C on

its cycle T
p
=T/2. The average value C is determined by an integral
of p on the cycle T
p
, or on the cycle T:
C(t) =
1
T
p

t
tTp
v
1
() v
2
() d. (10)
For the practical implementation of Eq. (10), two data windows of
length m are needed. These data windows contain discrete values
v
1
(k) and v
2
(k) calculated from the raw samples i
r
(k), u
pol
(k) and
u
r
(k) through Eqs. (6) and (7). The average power of v
1
(k) v
2
(k),
within one cycle T
p
, can be determined by the sum:
TDHC =
2
m
m/2

k=1
v
1
(k) v
2
(k). (11)
Eq. (11) represents the time-domain half-cycle algorithm. The sec-
ond version of the time-domain algorithmis based on the full-cycle
sumwithin one cycle T:
TDFC =
1
m
m

k=1
v
1
(k) v
2
(k). (12)
In the time-domain approach the MHO characteristic is realized
making use of Eqs. (6), (7) and (11), or alternatively (6), (7) and (12).
The same operating characteristic in the phasor-domain approach
requires computing the phasors U
r
, U
pol
and I
r
, then calculating V
1
and V
2
through Eqs. (2) and (3), and nally their phase difference
Fig. 4. Block diagramof the time-domain and the phasor-domain algorithms.
=arg(V
1
) arg(V
2
). Computing each of the phasors requires the
same computational burdenas the time-domainphase comparison
in Eq. (12). This indicates that the time-domain approach allows us
to realize a distance relay algorithmwith a smaller computational
burden than in the phasor-domain approach.
3. Block diagram
The proposed algorithms are based on the time-domain
approach utilizing Eqs. (6), (7), (11) and (12). Characteristics of the
proposed algorithms are compared to characteristics of a phasor-
domain algorithm, based on the well-known full cycle discrete
Fourier transformation and Eqs. (2) and (3) in the phasor-domain.
The block diagram of the complete system for testing the algo-
rithms is shown in Fig. 4.
Input signals from the protected line are obtained from a sim-
ulator that calculates electromagnetic transient behavior of the
power system. In our testing we used a sampling rate f
s
=1600Hz,
or m=32 samples per fundamental cycle. Fault type detection is
implemented according to Table 1.
The anti-aliasing lter (F1) is an analog low-pass lter that is
used to minimize aliasing effects as well as to attenuate the high
frequency components. We used simulation of an analog second
order Butterworth low-pass lter with cutoff frequency of 93.6Hz,
stop-band cutoff frequency of 380Hz and stop-band attenuation
28dB (F1 in Fig. 5).
Inorder toreduce decaying DCoffset ini
r
andimpact of the tran-
sient response of capacitive coupled voltage transformers (CCVTs)
[31], we propose using Characteristic Harmonic Digital Filter
Fig. 5. Frequency responses of the anti-aliasing lter (F1) and CharmDF (F2).
S.J. Zubic, M.B. Djuric / Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028 23
Table 3
The relationship between the sampling rates mand the phase differences .
m 16 20 32 64
78.75

81.00

84.37

87.19

(CharmDF), presented in [30], in current i

r
and voltage signals u
r
and u
pol
.
CharmDF is based on the equation:
s
f
(k) = s(k) s(k 1) (13)
where s(k) represents kth signal sample at time t, s (k 1) rep-
resents (k 1)th signal sample at time (t T
S
), T
S
represents a
sampling cycle (T
S
=T/m) and s
f
(k) represents the kth ltered signal
sample.
The CharmDF signicantly decreases the level of the decaying
DC component in the current and voltage signals with only one
sample time delay, and also makes a positive phase shift in the
signal s
f
which can be seen in Fig. 6. The phase shift depends on
the sampling rate m, which is shown in Table 3. The relationship
between s
f
and s can be shown by their phasors S
f
and S:
K
1
S
-
f
= e
i
S
-
, (14)
where magnitudes of the phasors are related through the following
expression [30]:
K
1
=
1
2 sin(/m)
=
|S
-
|
|S
-
f
|
. (15)
The CharmDF is a high-pass lter that attenuates the DC com-
ponent, while amplifying harmonic components with frequencies
over the fundamental frequency. Its frequency response is shown
in Fig. 5 (F2). The frequency responses of the sums (11) and (12),
and complete time-domain algorithms are presented in the next
section.
For easy comparison of transient behavior of the analyzed algo-
rithms, the output of the phasor-domain based algorithm PDFC is
also set to detect a fault when its value becomes negative.
4. Frequency responses of the proposed algorithms
For obtaining the most realistic frequency response of the pro-
posed algorithms, we have to consider frequency responses of
the anti-aliasing lter, decaying DC-offset lter, and the time-
domain phase comparators. The anti-aliasing lter is an LP lter
that attenuates harmonic components (F1 in Fig. 5), but passes
the DC component. The decaying DC-offset lter is a high-pass l-
ter that attenuates the DC component, while amplifying harmonic
Fig. 6. Original (s) and wave (s
f
) ltered by CharmDF.
Fig. 7. Frequency responses of the half-cycle sum(F3) and the full-cycle sum(F4).
components with frequencies over the fundamental frequency (F2
in Fig. 5). The half-cycle sumin Eq. (11) is a lter whose frequency
response is shown in Fig. 7 (F3), while the full-cycle sumin Eq. (12)
is a lter whose frequency response is shown in Fig. 7 (F4). The
full-cycle sum can lter out all harmonic components while the
half-cycle sumcan lter out only even-order harmonics. In order to
determine the frequency response of the whole time-domain algo-
rithms we have to analyze howthe harmonic components in input
signals i
r
(k), u
pol
(k) and u
r
(k) appear in the algorithms outputs
TDHC and TDFC.
The phase comparator has two inputs (v
1
and v
2
) and the main
problem in the time-domain approach is that a harmonic compo-
nent in one input appears as a different harmonic component in
their product p. For example, in Fig. 8 we show that the fth har-
monic in v
2
, after multiplying with v
1
, appears as two components,
thefourthandthesixthharmonic. Theintegral of pwill lter out the
second, the fourth and the sixth harmonic components, and keep
only the DC component containing the information of the phase
difference between v
1
and v
2
. In a different case, if an even-order
harmonic appears in v
2
, for example the fourth harmonic, it will
appear in p as the third and the fth harmonic component. The
half-cycle sum in Eq. (11) cannot lter out odd-order harmonic
components and they will appear in output TDHC as a uctuat-
ing component, but the full-cycle sum in Eq. (12) is able to lter
out these harmonics.
This short analysis shows that, in contrast to the phasor-domain
approach, for time-domain algorithms it is not possible to plot a
classical frequency response with gain on the vertical axis because
an input harmonic component appears as a fewdifferent harmonic
components in the outputs TDHC and TDFC. This is the reason why
we decided to use error as the variable in our frequency response,
instead of gain. We compared the accurate value C, without har-
monic components in input signals, to the outputs TDHC and TDFC
whena harmonic component appears inone input signal. The value
error represents the maximal deviation from the accurate value C
(Fig. 9). In order to compare the proposed time-domain algorithms
to the phasor-domain algorithm PDFC, we used the same criteria
to obtain the frequency response of the phasor-domain algorithm
whenharmonic components are presentedinsignals i
r
(k) andu
r
(k).
Fig. 8. Signals v
1
, v
2
and p in the frequency domain.
24 S.J. Zubic, M.B. Djuric / Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028
Fig. 9. Evaluation of the harmonic components impact on the algorithms accuracy.
In Fig. 10 we showthe frequency response of the proposed algo-
rithms, as well as the frequency response of the phasor-domain
algorithm. In our analyses we considered all explained lters and
put harmonic components in i
r
(k) and u
r
(k) from 0 to 8 with
step 0.1. For this testing each harmonic component has the same
magnitude as the fundamental component of i
r
or u
r
, and each
component is added to the input signal 200 times with random
phase angle. We can see from Fig. 10 that the frequency response
of the full-cycle time-domain algorithm (TDFC) is very similar to
the frequency response of the full-cycle phasor-domain algorithm
(PDFC) based on the FCDFT. The half-cycle TDHC is able to lter
out only odd-order harmonics in input signals. All algorithms have
good attenuation for DC components. The frequency responses in
Fig. 10 do not have a sense for the fundamental harmonic because
we do not calculate gain.
Inthenext sectionwewill comparethebehavior of theproposed
algorithms with the phasor-domain algorithm using numerous
tests.
5. Testing of the algorithms
Performances of the relaying algorithms are evaluated through
a series of tests using a simulator that calculates electromagnetic
transient behavior of the power system.
Many tests with different fault locations, fault resistances R
f
,
inception angles, source impedance ratios (SIR) and line loads are
conducted to show the algorithms performances. The power sys-
tem parameters are given in Fig. 11. Line load is controlled by the
angle . In our testing we used m=32 samples per fundamental
cycle.
The rst task is choosing an optimal angle of the MHO operating
characteristic for all further tests. In Table 4 we showed how the
relays reach depends on the fault resistance for different angles
Fig. 10. Frequency responses of the proposed time-domain algorithms and the
phasor-domain algorithm.
Table 4
The relationship between the protected zone and the angle for different fault
resistances R
f
.
R
f
0 10 20 30 40
=33.75

85% 99% 89% 81% 74%

=45.00

85% 88% 81% 72% 64%

=56.25

85% 84% 75% 65% 56%

=67.00

85% 80% 70% 59% 48%

Table 5
Impact of the loaddirectiontothe distance relayprotectedzone (SIR=0.3, =45.00

,
R
f
=0).
LOAD =5

=10

=15

=20

Forward ( =) 85% 85% 85% 85%

Reverse ( =) 84% 83% 83% 82%
Table 6
Impact of the load direction to the distance relay protected zone (SIR=5, =45.00

,
R
f
=0).
LOAD =5

=10

=15

=20

Forward ( =) 84% 85% 86% 87%

Reverse ( =) 81% 79% 78% 76%
of the MHO characteristic . For each angle we chose a cross-
polarizedMHO characteristic that offers 85%relayreachfor forward
line load (inFig. 11 load ows fromE
S
to E
R
, =10

), fault resistance
R
f
=0and SIR=0.3. We can notice that for some fault resistances
it is possible overreach, but for increasing and R
f
reach is smaller.
According to Table 4 we chose the cross-polarized MHO character-
istic with =45

(delay=4) for all further tests.

Tables 5and6showhowthe relays reachfor a chosenoperating
characteristic depends on different load directions and different
SIR. We can notice that for small SIR and forward load direction, the
relays reach does not depend on the line load, yet for the reverse
direction, we can notice a small underreach. Bigger underreach and
small overreach is noticeable for SIR=5.
The algorithms are tested on phase-to-ground fault, phase-to-
phase fault, and three-phase fault. Voltage and current waveforms
are shown in Fig. 12 for a-g fault, Fig. 14 for a-b fault and Fig. 16
for a-b-c fault at 40kmand with SIR=0.3. The waveforms contain a
lot of noise after the fault inception. The outputs of the algorithms
are showed in Fig. 13(a-g fault), Fig. 15(a-b fault) and Fig. 17(a-b-c
fault). It can be observed that the time-domain full-cycle algorithm
TDFChas verysimilar output tothephasor-domainalgorithmPDFC.
The half-cycle algorithmTDHC has a smaller time delay but in case
of the current transformer saturation (Fig. 18) we can observe that
the output of the TDHC algorithmuctuates due to the presence of
even-order harmonics in input current.
For faults that cause very low line voltages, the transient out-
put voltage from capacitive coupled voltage transformers (CCVT)
may be different from its input voltage waveform. Fig. 19a shows
the voltage waveform in the primary system (ratio voltage) and
the transient voltage waveformin the secondary of CCVT. If we did
not use CharmDF, then the algorithms outputs would be affected
as shown in Fig. 19b. After the fault occurs the output in Fig. 19b
Fig. 11. Single line diagramof the power systemmodel.
S.J. Zubic, M.B. Djuric / Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028 25
Fig. 12. Voltage andcurrent waveforms for phase-to-groundfault at 40kmdistance.
Fig. 13. Outputs fromcompared algorithms for phase-to-ground fault.
drops belowits steady value and that can cause the incorrect over-
reach. In order to reduce CCVT transients we applied CharmDF to
the voltage signals. Fig. 20 shows that applying this lter mitigates
CCVT transients and TDFC does not drop belowits steady value.
We also compared operating times for different SIR and fault
locations. FromFig. 21 it can be observed that the TDHC algorithm
Fig. 14. Voltage and current waveforms for phase-to-phase fault at 40kmdistance.
Fig. 15. Outputs fromcompared algorithms for phase-to-phase fault.
Fig. 16. Voltage and current waveforms for three-phase fault at 40kmdistance.
has anoperating time under 0.6fundamental cycle for all fault loca-
tions and SIR. The TDFC algorithmhas an operating time up to 1.1
fundamental cycles, and its speed is practically the same as the
speed of the PDFC algorithm.
The operating time is also tested for a phase-to-ground fault
at different fault locations, at various inception angles, and fault
resistances, while SIR=0.3. The results of simulations are summa-
rized in Tables 715. Inception angles of the voltage waveformare
90

, 45

and 0

. The operating time of the algorithms is provided in

Fig. 17. Outputs fromcompared algorithms for three-phase fault.
26 S.J. Zubic, M.B. Djuric / Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028
Fig. 18. Impact of saturation of the current transformer to the time-domain algo-
rithms outputs.
Fig. 19. Impact of the CCVT transient on the algorithms output when CharmDF is
not applied.
Table 7
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 90

and R
f
=0.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.08 0.38 0.35
30% 0.41 0.53 0.53
50% 0.42 0.58 0.58
70% 0.52 0.98 0.98
80% 0.6 1.07 1.06
Fig. 20. Impact of the CCVT transient on the algorithms output when CharmDF is
applied.
Fig. 21. Operating time of the compared algorithms for different source impedance
ratios (SIR).
S.J. Zubic, M.B. Djuric / Electric Power Systems Research 92 (2012) 2028 27
Table 8
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 45

and R
f
=0.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.1 0.16 0.16
30% 0.15 0.56 0.55
50% 0.25 0.6 0.6
70% 0.55 0.74 0.74
80% 0.6 1.05 1
Table 9
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 0

and R
f
=0.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.21 0.28 0.26
30% 0.28 0.62 0.6
50% 0.35 0.74 0.72
70% 0.63 0.82 0.82
80% 0.72 1.15 1.1
Table 10
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 90

and R
f
=20.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.1 0.39 0.38
30% 0.4 0.52 0.52
50% 0.42 0.78 0.7
70% 0.51 0.96 0.96
80% 0.92 1.42 1.41
Table 11
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 45

and R
f
=20.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.12 0.27 0.26
30% 0.22 0.55 0.55
50% 0.48 0.65 0.64
70% 0.6 1 1
80% 0.7 1.15 1.2
Table 12
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 0

and R
f
=20.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.23 0.37 0.37
30% 0.3 0.65 0.65
50% 0.57 0.76 0.76
70% 0.68 1.1 1.08
80% 0.82 1.3 1.3
Table 13
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 90

and R
f
=40.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.28 0.42 0.41
30% 0.41 0.75 0.68
50% 0.45 0.9 0.9
70% nop nop nop
80% nop nop nop
Table 14
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 45

and R
f
=40.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.15 0.48 0.47
30% 0.45 0.62 0.62
50% 0.52 0.95 0.91
70% nop nop nop
80% nop nop nop
Table 15
Operating time in cycles for an inception angle of 0

and R
f
=40.
Fault location Time domain algorithm Phasor domain
PDFC
TDHC TDFC
10% 0.28 0.61 0.6
30% 0.52 0.72 0.72
50% 0.66 1.06 1.04
70% nop nop nop
80% nop nop nop
fundamental cycles, while nop is used for cases when an algorithm
did not operate. Tables 715 show that the nop cases occurred for
the biggest R
f
according to Table 4 for =45

. The operating time

also increases for larger R
f
. Those results also show that the pro-
posed time-domain algorithmhas nearly the same operating speed
as the phasor-domain algorithm.
6. Conclusions
Two versions of a distance relay algorithm based on the time-
domain approach are presented and compared to an algorithm
based on the phasor-domain approach with full-cycle DFT. There
aretwomaindifferences betweenthetime-domainandthephasor-
domain algorithms. The rst is that it is not possible to get classical
frequency response for the time-domain algorithms because its
phase comparator multiplies input voltages and currents. We used
a different criterion and showed that the full-cycle version of the
time-domain algorithmhas nearly the same frequency response as
the phasor-domain algorithmbased on FCDFT. The half-cycle ver-
sion of the time-domain algorithmcould not lter out even-order
harmonics, and that is the reason why its algorithmcannot be used
in a case where current transformer saturation is expected. The
second difference is that the time-domain algorithmuses delayed
input signals in order to achieve phase shifts for different cross-
polarized MHO operating characteristics. Tests showed that these
delayed signals practically did not affect the operation speed.
After all tests we can make a few conclusions. The proposed
time-domain algorithm has nearly the same frequency response
and operating speed as the traditional phasor-domain based algo-
rithm. The main advantage is that the time-domain approach
allows for realization of an MHO operating characteristic with a
smaller computational burden than the phasor-domain approach,
which requires calculating the phasors for all inputs. The main dis-
advantage of the time-domain approach is that the angle of the
operating characteristic can be set in only discrete steps that are
dependent on the sampling frequency.
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