PDTools: A Toolbox of Partial Discharge (PD) Signal

Analysis for Transformer Condition Assessment

Hui Ma, Tapan Saha, Junhyuck Seo, Jeffery Chan, Yi Cui
School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland
Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia
huima@itee.uq.edu.au, saha@itee.uq.edu.au, j.seo@uq.edu.au, jeffchchan@gmail.com, y.cui3@uq.edu.au

Abstract— Partial discharge (PD) measurement of power

transformers provides a means for condition assessment of their II. GENERAL PROCEDURE OF PD SIGNAL ANALYSIS
insulation systems. To reach an informed assessment on the Fig. 1 presents a general procedure for analyzing PD
condition of a transformer’s insulation system, it needs to
signals acquired from online PD measurements of transformer.
appropriately analyze the measured PD signals. Though
abundant methods have been proposed for PD signal analysis, it
It consists of four major steps.
is still a non-trivial task and especially for non-expert. Thus, this
paper develops an open source toolbox for PD signal analysis. Signal De-nosing Signal Multi PD Source PD Source
The toolbox consists of various PD signal analysis algorithms, Representation Separation Classification
from PD signal de-noising to PD signal representation, and to
multiple PD source separation and PD source classification. The
toolbox can be readily used by researchers and utility engineers
to process and interpret the signals obtained from PD
measurements of transformers at laboratory and field. (a) Projection Support Vector
Machine (SVM)
Data Acquisition
Index Terms—Condition assessment, insulation, partial
discharge, signal analysis, transformer.

I. INTRODUCTION (b) Separation

Data Preprocessing
Partial discharge (PD) measurements have long been
adopted for assessing the insulation system of power
Data
transformer [1]-[3]. To assess PD activities inside transformers Acquisition
Coupling HV
and make diagnosis on the condition of their insulation Capacitor Transformer
System
systems, it needs to perform a series of signal analysis tasks
such as de-noising PD signal, selecting representative features
from raw PD signals, separating multiple PD sources, and HFCT
Measurement Signal
classifying PD source [3]-[14]. However, it is still a difficult Impedance Conditioning
task to select appropriate techniques and make use of these
techniques to process PD signals acquired from PD
Fig.1. Procedure of PD signal analysis for transformer
measurements of transformers. There is also lack of readily
applicable tools for utility engineers and researchers who are
new to PD measurement but want to explore transformer and 1) PD signal de-noising. It is used to de-noise the originally
measured PD signals, which can be noise-corrupted.
other substation equipment diagnostic areas.
This paper is aimed at developing an open source toolbox 2) PD signal representation and feature selection. It is used to
(named as PDTools and implemented in Matlab), which choose a subset of representative but not redundant
attributes of raw PD signals.
encapsulates a variety of digital signal processing algorithms as
a ready-to-use tool for analyzing PD measurement data. Most 3) Multiple PD source separation. It is used to differentiate
of these algorithms were implemented by the authors of this the measured mixed PD signals into several distinctive
paper when conducting PD related research for power groups with each group corresponding to an individual PD
transformer condition assessment. source.
The remaining parts of this paper are as follows. Section II 4) PD source classification. It is used to identify the type of a
presents a general procedure and the key steps involved in PD PD source that causes the discharge inside transformer.
signal analysis. Section III through to Section VI briefly review There exist different types of PD measurement systems. In
the algorithms included in the toolbox with several examples. Fig.1, two representative systems, i.e. the capacitive system
Section VII concludes the paper. and the inductive system are presented [1], [2]. The inductive
system normally uses a high frequency current transducer

978-1-5386-2212-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

(HFCT) installed on the transformer’s grounding cable for PD Fig. 2c, 2d and 2e are the PD signal de-noising results by using
signal acquisition. The capacitive system uses a coupling different joint time-frequency analysis algorithms [6].
capacitor and a measuring impedance for PD signal
acquisition. Along with the PD signals, the signal in phase with
the voltage of the transformer is also recorded. In the PDTools
toolbox, this signal is needed for various PD signal analysis
tasks.
The following sections provide a brief review on several
key algorithms, which are implemented in the PDTools to
fulfill the tasks listed above. Case studies of using these
algorithms to analyze PD signals collected from PD
measurements are also provided as illustrations. Due to the (a) (b)
space limitations, the mathematical derivations and
formulations of the algorithms included in the PDTools
toolbox are not discussed in this paper. Readers may refer to
the authors’ papers as listed in the references ([5] - [7], [9],
[10], and [14]) for more details. It is also worth mentioning that
the PDTools toolbox does not attempt to include all signal
processing techniques. Rather, it implements some
representative techniques and demonstrates how to apply these (c) (d)
techniques to PD signal analysis. The algorithms included in
the PDTools toolbox can be modified and extended to suit
other types of PD measurement systems (e.g. acoustic, ultra-
high frequency (UHF) PD measurement).

III. PD SIGNAL DE-NOISING

During PD measurement of transformer in substation
environment, various noise and interferences can be coupled
into measurement system [3-5]. These noise and interferences
are generated from a variety of sources. Communication
systems and power electronics may generate noise having
discrete spectrum in frequency. Measurement system and
substation environment can generate white noise. Power
electronics and some periodic switching equipment can
produce periodical noise. Arcing and corona from overhead
transmission line or other equipment at substation can produce
impulsive interferences. It is therefore the first step in PD
signal analysis is the signal de-noising to remove noise from
the measured signals.
PD signal de-noising can be achieved in time domain,
frequency domain, and joint time-frequency domain. Recently,
a number of joint time-frequency analysis methods such as
discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and empirical mode
decomposition (EMD) have gained much more popularity in
PD signal de-noising 4-6], [11-14]. The success of DWT and
EMD attribute to their capabilities of processing signal in both
time and frequency under multiple scales.
Fig.2 illustrates the results of applying a number of joint
time-frequency algorithms included in the PDTools to remove
noise from PD signal. In Fig.2, the PD signal (Fig.2a) was
simulated by using the damped exponential pulses (DEP). The
simulated PD signal was then augmented by a number of
sinusoidal signals (noise), of which the amplitudes and
frequencies were randomly set. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
of the above noise corrupted PD signal was -5 dB (Fig. 2b).
(e)
Fig.2. Examples of PD signal de-noising using algorithms in PDTools (a) PD
signal; (b) noise corrupted PD signal with SNR is -5 dB; (c) DWT; (d) EMD;
(e) EMD with kurtosis-based decomposed signal selection [6]. Note:
Amplitude is in mv.
It can be observed from Fig.2 that DWT could not fully
recover the PD pulses from noise and the extracted pulses'
polarity directions were ambiguous (Fig.2c). Though EMD
preserved the polarity information, it still failed to recover
some PD pulses (right-hand side in Fig. 2d). In contrast, EMD
with kurtosis-based decomposed signal selection preserved all
the PD pulses with correct polarity and location (Fig. 2e).
To further improve DWT, a probabilistic discrete wavelet
transform (P-DWT) algorithm was developed by the authors
and also included in the PDTools [5]. In P-DWT algorithm, a
multi-scale thresholding method was proposed.
Fig.3 illustrates the use of P-DWT algorithm to extract PD
signals from measured signals containing discrete spectrum
interference (DSI) and white noise. DSI occurs at a number of
discrete frequencies. However, these frequencies and
corresponding amplitudes are stochastic and they are unknown
in advance of the PD measurement system. The PD signals
shown in Fig.3 (a) were acquired from an experimental PD
model of corona in a laboratory environment. An inductive PD
measurement system using a high frequency current
transducer (HFCT) was used for PD signal acquisition. White
noise and DSI were added to the measured PD signals with a
total SNR = -24.7 dB.

978-1-5386-2212-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE


Fig.3. PD signal extraction from data obtained using an experimental PD
model of corona. (a) measured signal including PD components (red) and
added noise components (blue), s/n ratio = -24.7 dB; (b) extracted PD signals
using P-DWT; (c) extracted PD signals using conventional DWT [5].
It can be seen from Fig.3(a) that the PD impulses (in red)
were totally submerged in noise (in blue). Fig.3 (b) shows the
PD signals extracted using P-DWT, while Fig. 3(c) shows the
corresponding result using conventional DWT. In both cases a
Daubechies 2 mother wavelet and ten decomposition levels
were used. It can be seen in Fig. 3(b) that most of the PD
signal was extracted from the noise, while in Fig. 3 (c) the PD
signal was not satisfactorily extracted.
In the PDTools toolbox, the above DWT, EMD, P-DWT
and their variants were implemented. Also, a number of other
signal processing algorithms such as adaptive filter, fast
Fourier transform (FFT), short-time FFT were also
implemented.
IV. PD SIGNAL REPRESENTATION AND FEATURE
SELECTION
A. PRPD and PRPS
In PD measurement, discharge signal is acquired as an
impulse train and the intensity and occurrence time of these
impulses are recorded. The phase-resolved PD (PRPD)
diagram has been widely adopted to characterize PD signal. In
a PRPD diagram, the applied voltage’s cycle (50Hz/60Hz) is
segmented into many phase windows; and in each individual
phase window the PD impulses are quantified by their
numbers, average amplitude, and maximum amplitude. If the
relationship between the test voltage and PD activities is
known, PRPD would provide an appropriate PD signal
978-1-5386-2212-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
representation. The features extracted from PRPD can be used
in the subsequent PD source classification.
PD signals may cross a wide range of frequency bands and
different types of PD measurement systems may have different
bandwidths in measurement. This can affect the measurement
system’s resolution on the acquired PD signals as well as the
system’s noise resistivity. In turn, PRPD diagram constructed
on the PD signals acquired by different measurement system
may exhibit some degree of difference. As a complimentary to
PRPD, the phase-resolved pulse sequence (PRPS) has also
been proposed for PD signal representation. Instead of using
the amplitudes of PD impulses, PRPS is based on the phase
angle between two consecutive PD impulses [7]. Both PRPD
and PRPS diagrams are implemented in the PDTools.
Fig.4 shows PRPD and PRPS diagrams constructed for PD
signals acquired from a PD experimental model using three
different PD sensors/measurement systems, namely inductive
system using HFCT 1 (350kHz~35MHz), inductive system
using HFCT 2 (500kHz~50MHz), and capacitive system
complying with IEC60270. As shown in Fig. 4b1-b3, the
PRPD diagrams constructed on the signals from different
measurement systems exhibited some degree of variations. On
the contrary, the PRPS diagrams (Fig. 4 c1-c3) attained high
consistency over the different PD measurement systems.
(a1) (b1) (c1)
(a2) (b2) (c2)
(a3) (b3) (c3)
Fig.4. PRPD and PRPS diagrams for a PD experimental model (a1) - (a3)
acquired PD signals by inductive system using HFCT 1, inductive system
using HFCT 2, and capacitive system; (b1)-(b3) corresponding PRPD
diagrams; (c1)-(c3) corresponding PRPS diagrams [7].
B. Feature Selections
The PD signal obtained from a PD measurement can be
 
denoted as a N x D matrix X  x1 ,..., x N  , x i  x1i ,..., x iD ,
where D is the dimensional vector for the i-th data acquisition
and N is the total data acquisition number. The feature
selection converts the dataset X to a N x d feature (MM) are included. Other multiple PD source separation
 
dataset Y  y1 ,..., y N  , y i  y1i ,..., y id , where d << D. It is methods are also included in the toolbox. Comments on the
applicability and limitations of different multiple PD source
obvious that considerable features are removed after feature
separation methods for field transformer condition monitoring
selection; however, the feature dataset Y still consists of
will be provided. This can help users to select the most suitable
essential features to characterize PD signals and it can be used
method in industry practice. Fig.5 presents the results of PD
for the subsequent PD data analysis, i.e. PD pattern
sources separation using different types of TF maps.
classification [8], [9].
A number of feature selection methods were implemented
in the PDTools toolbox. Amongst these methods, the statistic
operators and principle components are calculated from PRPD
diagrams. The feature set of statistic operators consists of 24
features including skewness, kurtosis, number of peaks,
asymmetry between positive and negative cycles, and cross-
correlation factor. In constructing the feature set of principle
components, a set of minimum number (called the intrinsic (a) (b) (c)
dimensionality and determined by maximum likelihood
estimation) of characteristics is obtained [9].
Other than using PRPD diagram, feature selection methods
using DWT and EMD were also implemented in the PDTools
toolbox [9], [10]. In these methods, DWT or EMD is used to
decompose the measured PD signals. The signals are then
represented by a set of coefficients at different levels (scales).
The mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis of the probability
(d) (e)
distribution of these coefficients are computed, which in turn
to form the feature set.

V. MULTIPLE PD SOURCE SEPARATION

Several PD sources may co-exist in a power transformer
and cause discharge simultaneously. To classify PD sources
involved in the discharge, it firstly needs to separate the mixed
PD signals originated from different PD sources. A number of
separation methods have been proposed in the literature such as
mixed Weibull model, auto-correlation function, blind source
separation, and time-frequency (TF) map. Among these
techniques, the TF map has been widely adopted in recent
years [11-13]. It calculates the equivalent time length and
bandwidth for each PD impulses acquired from the PD
measurement. Then a two dimensional (2D) plane, i.e. the TF
map is constructed by projecting the above two values of each
PD impulse onto the 2D plane. On the TF map, the PD
impulses can be clustered according to the different values of
equivalent time length and bandwidth. Each cluster
corresponds to one particular PD source.
To further improve the above TF map, the authors of this
paper developed a TF sparsity map [14]. To construct a TF
sparsity map, the measured PD signals are decomposed into
time and frequency domains. Then sparsity values are
calculated from the coefficients (i.e. decomposed signals).
From the sparsity values, the sparsity trends can be obtained to
uniquely represent PD sources. Finally, the sparsity TF map is
formed by projecting the average values of sparsity trends in
time and frequency domains for each PD impulse on a 2D
plane.
In the PDTools toolbox, a number of TF maps including
the conventional TF map, TF sparsity map built upon DWT,
and TF sparsity map built upon mathematical morphology
(f)
Fig.5. Different TF maps (a) multi-PD source test cell (three different PD
sources can be configured simultaneously); (b) DWT (db2) + TF sparsity
map; (c) DWT (db5) + sparsity map; (d) conventional TF map; (e) MM + TF
sparsity map; (f) corresponding PRPD for MM + TF sparsity map [14].
In Fig.5, three PD sources including discharge in
transformer oil, surface discharge, and corona were generated
using a test cell (Fig.5a). It can be seen that the conventional
TF map (Fig. 5d) was not able to separate the three PD
sources as the PD signals generated by different PD sources
were merged together. On the contrary, the TF sparsity map
built upon MM achieved a clear separation of three PD
sources (Fig. 5e and 5f). For the TF sparsity map built upon
DWT, it could not completely separate three PD sources. Its
separation capability was also dependent on the selection of
mother wavelet in DWT (Fig. 5b and 5c).
VI. PD SOURCE CLASSIFICATION
One major task of PD signal analysis is to recognize the PD
source that cause discharge inside transformer, i.e. establishing
whether the discharges are originated from cavities in
transformer insulation or by protrusions or due to electric field
concentrated along the surface of insulation or by bubbles in
transformer oil or by small metal particles in the oil.
PD sources classification is based on the features dataset Y
(refer to Section IVB), of which each data point belongs to one
of the T types of PD sources. After using the dataset Y, which
consists of fingerprints (features) of different PD sources to

978-1-5386-2212-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

train an algorithm, the algorithm can establish a model to VII. CONCLUSIONS
approximate the underlying mathematical relationship between This paper presented the PDTools toolbox, which
the data points in the dataset Y and their corresponding types encapsulated a variety of signal processing, signal
of PD sources. Then, after de-noising and feature selection, the representation, feature selection, source separation and
signals obtained from PD measurement of transformer are fed classification algorithms for analyzing PD signals obtained
into the above trained algorithm and are classified into one type from measurements on transformer. The PDTools will be
of the PD sources [9]. published online soon. It hopes that this toolbox can provide a
There are abundant pattern recognition algorithms that have ready-to-use tool for the researchers and engineers to analyze
been applied to PD sources classification [8], [9]. In the their PD measurement results.
PDTools toolbox, a number of representative neural networks
(NNs) and support vector machines (SVMs) algorithms were
implemented for the classification of PD source. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Table 1 presents the classification performance of five
different algorithms included in the PDTools toolbox. They The authors gratefully acknowledge Australian Research
are: k nearest neighbour (KNN), two-layer (input-output) Council, Powerlink Queensland, Energex, Ergon Energy, and
network, radial basis network (RBF), multi-layer perceptron TransGrid for providing supports for this work.
(MLP), and fuzzy support vector machine (FSVM). The
feature set used in these algorithms were statistic operators.
These five algorithms were tasked to classify five different REFERENCES
types (classes) PD sources. The training database Y consists of [1] IEC International Standard 60270, High-Voltage Test Techniques -
Partial Discharge Measurements, 2000.
700 data points. The testing is on a dataset consisting of 300 [2] IEC International Standard 62478/Ed1, High Voltage Test Techniques -
data points. Measurement of Partial Discharges by Electromagnetic and Acoustic
Table I Methods, 2012.
Classification results (in percentage) of different algorithms [3] R. Bartnikas, “Partial Discharges: Their Mechanism, Detection and
(with the feature set of statistic operators) [9] Measurement”, IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul, Vol. 9, No.5, pp.
763-808, 2002.
Overal Class Class Class Class Class [4] S. Sriram, S. Nitin, K.M.M. Prabhu and M.J. Bastiaans, “Signal de-
Algorithm l 1 2 3 4 5 noising techniques for partial discharge measurements”, IEEE Trans.
Rate Rate Rate Rate Rate Rate Dielectr. Electr. Insul, Vol. 12, No. 6, pp. 1182 – 1191, 2005.
[5] J. Seo, H. Ma, T. Saha, “Probabilistic Wavelet Transform for Partial
KNN 90.8 99.4 83.8 86.7 99.5 85.2 Discharge Measurement of Transformer,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr.
Two-layer 90.6 94.7 87.2 86.1 97.6 88.1 Insul, Vol. 22, No.5, 2015.
RBF 92.5 98.5 87.4 90.1 97.8 89.2 [6] J. Chan, H. Ma, T. Saha, and C. Ekanayake, “Self-Adaptive Partial
MLP 92.0 98.1 84.8 91.6 99.1 86.6 Discharge signal extraction based on ensemble empirical mode
decomposition and optimal morphological thresholding,” IEEE Trans.
FSVM 95.1 99.5 92.0 92.2 99.4 92.7 Dielectr. Electr. Insul, Vol.21, No.1, 2014.
Note: Class 1 – corona; Class 2 – discharge in oil; Class 3 – surface discharge; [7] J. Chan, H. Ma, and T. Saha, “Automatic Blind Equalization and
Class 4 – internal discharge; Class 5 – discharge due to floating particle. Morphological Thresholding for Partial Discharge Signal De-noising,”
Classification rates are in percentage. IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 29, No.4, 2014.
[8] N. Sahoo, M. Salama, and R Bartnikas, “Trends in Partial Discharge
PDTools integrates. all the above algorithms in one Pattern Classification: A Survey,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul,
toolbox. Fig. 6 shows the key modules and integration of the Vol. 12, pp. 248-264, 2005.
[9] H. Ma, J. Chan, T. Saha, and C. Ekanayake, “Pattern Recognition
PDTools. Techniques and Their Applications for Automatic Partial Discharge
Source Classification,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul, Vol. 20,
No.2, 2013.
[10] J. Chan, H. Ma, and T. Saha, “Partial Discharge pattern recognition
using multi-scale feature extraction and support vector Machine,” in
Proceedings of IEEE Power and Energy Society 2013 General Meeting,
Vancouver, BC, Canada, July, 2013.
[11] A. Cavallini and G. Montanari, "A new methodology for the
identification of PD in electrical apparatus: properties and applications,"
IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., Vol. 12, pp. 203-215, 2005.
[12] A. Contin, A. Cavallini, G. Montanari, G. Pasini, and F. Puletti, "Digital
detection and fuzzy classification of partial discharge signals," IEEE
Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., Vol. 9, pp. 335-348, 2002.
[13] A. Cavallini, G.Montanari, A. Contin, and F. Puletti, "A new approach
to the diagnosis of solid insulation systems based on PD signal
inference," IEEE Elect. Insul. Mag., Vol. 19, No.2, pp. 23-30, 2003.
[14] J. Chan, H. Ma and T. Saha, “Time-Frequency Sparsity Map on
Automatic Partial Discharge Sources Separation for Power Transformer
Condition Assessment,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul, Vol. 22,
No.4, 2015

Fig.6. PDTools Modules and Integration

978-1-5386-2212-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE