1

S-Transform based Directional

Bus-bar protection
S. R. Samantaray, L. N. Tripathy, P. K. Dash, G. Panda

current signal features are used for tripping decision. Another

Abstract— The directional protection of bus-bars using time- proposed technique extracts the energy spectrum of the
frequency transform such as S-transform is presented in the transient fault current to distinguish between internal and
paper. S-transform is used to estimates the phase and amplitude external fault [5]. Another technique uses wavelet transform
of the fault current signals during fault situations. The difference for direction estimation of the fault situation for bus-bar
in phase angle between positive sequence component of the protection by finding out the power signal derived from
current during fault and pre-fault conditions distinguishes
current and voltage signal [6]. Although wavelets provide a
internal faults (bus-bar faults) from external fault and load
change situations. The estimated phase difference is positive for variable window for low and high frequency currents in the
outgoing feeders for internal fault, but the same is negative for voltage and current waveforms during faults, their capabilities
external and load change conditions. Thus a simple rule base is are often significantly degraded owing to the existence of
formulated for bus-bar protection depending upon the difference noise riding high on the signal [7]. In particular, as the
in phase information of the current signal of the outgoing feeder. spectrum of the noise coincides with that of the transient
The proposed method is tested for different fault situations in signals, the effects of noise cannot be excluded by means of
bus-bar as well as external fault and loading conditions, and some kinds of filters without affecting the performance of the
provides accurate results. wavelet transform.
The proposed technique uses time-frequency transform
Index Terms— Bus-bar protection, S-transform, phasor
known as S-transform [8-9] for phasor estimation of the fault
estimation, phase change.
current signals, which in turn is used for direction estimation.
The S-transform is an invertible time-frequency spectral
I. INTRODUCTION localization technique that combines elements of wavelet
transforms and short-time Fourier transform. The S-transform
T he performance of a power network is frequently affected
by the bus-bar faults, which give rise to disruption in
power flow. Bus bar fault may cause excessive damage in
uses an analysis window whose width is decreasing with
frequency providing a frequency dependent resolution. This
transform may be seen as a continuous wavelet transform with
the system and the power network becomes completely a phase correction.
interrupted. Bus-bars, the connection nodes of multiple power The phase difference in positive sequence component of
circuits, must have very secure protection since tripping of a the pre-fault and fault current is found out in internal fault and
bus-bar usually has widespread power interruptions. The risk external fault, load change situations for both incoming and
of an unnecessary trip must be kept to a minimum. This outgoing feeders. S-transform accurately estimates the phase
immediately brings stability into consideration for a fault just of the respective current signals from which the phase
beyond the zone of bus-bar protection, commonly known as difference is calculated. The phase difference in pre-fault and
through faults, which has similar fault levels to the bus that fault current becomes positive for internal fault and negative
causes a mistrip of the bus-bar protection relay. The protection for external fault/load change situations in outgoing feeders.
must be stable for these through faults. Thus unwanted But the phase difference is negative for internal and external
tripping must be avoided to ensure operation of the protection fault/load change situations for incoming feeders. Thus a
scheme. simple rule base distinguishes the internal and external fault
Generally, differential protection scheme has been found taking the phase difference information of the outgoing feeder
suitable for bus-bar protection. But differential protection current signals only, reducing the cost of voltage sensors and
suffers due to CT saturation and ratio mismatch. This problem related elements. Thus an effective directional protection
can be solved to a certain extent by biased differential scheme for bus-bar is built up using the proposed technique.
protection scheme. Several protection schemes are available
[1-3] based on differential scheme for bus-bar protection II. S-TRANSFORM AND PHASOR ESTIMATION
employing microprocessor and digital signal processor.
Recently, a directional protection scheme based on wavelet The S-transform [8] is an invertible time-frequency
packets [4 ] has been presented where the decomposed fault spectral localization that combines elements of Short-time
Fourier transform and wavelet transform. The S-transform has
S.R.Samantaray and G. Panda are with National Institute of Technology,
an advantage in that it provides multiresolution analysis,
Rourkela, INDIA, E-mail: [email protected] which retaining absolute phase of each frequency. This has led
L. N. Tripathy and P. K. Dash are with Silicon Institute of Technology, to its application for time series analysis and pattern
Bhubaneswar, INDIA
 2

recognition in power networks and other engineering systems. absolute phase position of the corresponding pre-fault and
The expression for S-transform of a continuous signal x (t ) is fault current signal. Fig 1(b) provides the phase (radian)
given as comparison estimated using S-transform for fault current
signal without noise and with SNR up to 20 dB. It is observed
that the estimated phase does not change significantly in case
∞
⎧ f ⎫ ⎛ − f 2 (τ − t ) 2 ⎞ (1)
S(τ , f ) = ∫ x(t )⎨ ⎬. exp⎜⎜ ⎟⎟. exp(−2πift)dt of noisy environment.
−∞ ⎩α 2π ⎭ ⎝ 2α 2 ⎠
4

Magnitude
Here f is the frequency, t is the time and τ is a parameter 2

that controls the position of the Gaussian window on the t - 0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

axis. sample

The factor ‘ α ’ controls the time and frequency 4

M agnitude
resolution of the transform and lower ‘ α ’ means higher time 2

resolution. The converse is true if higher value of ‘ α ’ is 0

0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
chosen for the analysis. A suitable value of ‘ α ’, however, lies frequency

between 0.2 ≤ α ≤ 1 . 0

phase
∞ -1
Also (2)
∫ S (τ , f )dτ = X ( f )
−∞
-2
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
sample
where X ( f ) is the Fourier transform of x (t ) .
Fig.1 (a) Magnitude, frequency and phase estimation
The discrete version of the continuous S-transform is using S-transform
obtained as -0.5

N −1 ⎛ − 2π 2 m 2α 2 ⎞
S ( j , n) = ∑ X (m + n). exp⎜ ⎟. exp(i 2πmj ) (3) -0.6

⎜ n 2 ⎟ -0.7 Phase of fault current

m=0 ⎝ ⎠ -0.8
without noise

and j =1……..N-1, n =0, 1…N-1. -0.9

Here j and n indicate the time samples and frequency step,

phase

-1

respectively and -1.1

1 N −1
∑ x(k ). exp(−i 2πnk )
-1.2
X ( n) = (4) Fault inception
N k =0 -1.3

where n =0, 1………,N-1

-1.4 Phase of fault current
with SNR=20dB

Computation of X ( m + n) is done in a straight forward

-1.5
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
sample

manner from equation (4). The Fourier spectrum of the Fig.1 (b) Variation in phase with pure signal to
Gaussian window at a specific n (frequency) is called a voice signal with SNR=20dB
Gaussian and for a frequency f 1 ( n1 ) , the voice is obtained as III. SYSTEM STUDIED
S ( j , n1 ) = A( j , n1 ). exp( jφ ( j ,n1 ) (5) Ipre
Hence the peak value of the voice is
IFault (int) IFault (ext)
max(S ( j , n1 )) = max( A( j , n1 ) (6) IFault (int / ext)
and
⎧ imag ( S ( j , n1 )) ⎫
φ ( j , n1 ) = a tan ⎨ ⎬ (7)
Incoming Outgoing feeders
⎩ real ( S ( j, n1 )) ⎭
feeders
From the above analysis it is quite evident that not only S-
transform localizes the faulted event but also peak amplitude
and phase information of the current signals can be obtained,
which are used for direction estimation. To reduce calculations
only the fundamental voice of the S-transform can be used.
Fig. 1(a) shows the magnitude (pu) versus sample (time) Relay
estimated using S-transform as per (6) and the phase using (7)
at fundamental frequency voice. The normalized frequency Fig.2 Bus-bar with incoming and outgoing Feeders
versus magnitude (pu) plot in Fig.1 (b) (2nd window) shows
the frequency content information in the fault current signal. The system studied is shown in Fig. 2 has been developed
Thus when the magnitude is highest, corresponding frequency using PSCAD/EMTDC. The system voltage is 400 kV with
voice (position) is selected and at that particular frequency two incoming feeders and four outgoing feeders. The lines
voice, the phase in calculated as per (7). This provides the modeled as π sections of 100 km each. The current
 3

transformers are modeled as saturabale transformer available As shown in Fig. 5(a), the phase angle between I out and
in PSCAD/EMTDC. CTs are selected as per the standards
mentioned in [10, 11].The model is simulated with a sampling I pre is positive and the phase angle between I in and I pre is
frequency of 1.0 kHz on a 50Hz base frequency. The relaying negative for internal fault situation. Similarly for external fault
point is as shown in the figure for the selected bus. The figure
situation, as shown in Fig.5 (b), the phase angle between I out
also shows the direction of internal fault current, external fault
current and pre-fault current seen by the relay. and I pre is negative, and the phase angle between I in and
IV. DIRECTION ESTIMATION USING PHASE CHANGE IN I pre is also negative.
CURRENT SIGNAL
The proposed method estimates the phase change in the 5
current signal for direction estimation for different fault 4 External fault current
situations using S-transform. The current (pu) in case of pre-
3
fault, internal fault and external fault are shown in Fig. 3. The
2
fault currents for incoming and outgoing feeders are calculated Pre-fault current
1
as follows.

Amplitude
0
Let the fault current in the incoming and outgoing feeders
are I F 1 and I F 2
-1
respectively for internal fault situation -2

as shown in Fig. 4(a). But before the fault inception, there -3

exists a pre-fault current in both incoming and outgoing -4 Internal fault current
feeders. The directions of the fault and pre-fault currents are -5
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
shown in Fig. 4(a) for internal fault. Let the pre-fault current sample
Fig.3 Pre-fault, internal fault and external fault currents
be I pre . Now during internal fault situation the current seen retrieved at the relaying end
by the relay at the bus for incoming feeder is

I in = I pre + I F 1 Ipre
(10)
)
IF2
and similarly the current seen by the relay at bus for outgoing IF1
feeder will be

I out = I pre − I F 2 (11) Incoming

feeders Relay
But in case of external fault situation, the fault current
direction in the outgoing feeders gets changed, but that of
incoming remains same as shown in Fig. 4(b). In this Fault
condition, the current seen by the relay at bus for the incoming
feeder is Fig.4 (a) Fault and pre-fault currents during internal fault
(bus-bar fault)
I in = I pre + I F 1 (12)

and the current seen by the relay at bus for outgoing feeder
Ipre Outgoing
will be
) feeders
IF2
I out = I pre + I F 2 (13) IF1

The phasor relationship can be drawn for the fault and

pre-fault situations as shown in Fig. 5(a) and 5(b) for internal Fault
and external fault, respectively. The direction of fault current Incoming Relay
can be found out from the fault phasor position with respect to feeders
the pre-fault phasor position. Thus change in phase from pre- Fig.4 (b) Fault and pre-fault currents during external fault
fault condition to fault condition will provide the information
regarding the direction of fault seen by the relay at the bus-
bar.
 4

π and thus 2π is subtracted from the result and final values

of phase differences are -2.28 and -2.42, respectively.
Iout As seen in the results, the phase difference is negative for
incoming feeders for internal and external faults, but same is
positive for internal fault and negative for external fault for
outgoing feeders. Thus the phase difference for incoming
VBUS feeders is not considered for decision making process of the
proposed directional relay. Only the phase difference for
Ipre outgoing feeders is included in the decision process and a
simple rule base work satisfactorily for issuing the tripping
signal. When the phase difference is positive in all outgoing
feeders, trip signal is issued, otherwise no trip signal is
Iin generated.
IF2 IF1
The logic for tripping signal generation is given in Fig. 6.
Fig. 5(a) Phasor representation in case of internal fault This includes ANDing operation of all outputs (phase
VBUS difference) of outgoing feeders. The issue of tripping signal
with phase difference (radian) for all outgoing feeders with
Ipre respect to sample (time) for a-phase is shown in Fig 7(a). The
fault inception is at 0.027 second and the tripping signal is
issued at 0.042 second. Similar result for a-phase with fault
inception at 0.04 second is shown in Fig. 7(b), where the
Iout tripping signal is issued at 0.055 second. It is observed that
th
Iin the tripping signal is issued after 0.015 second (3/4 cycle)
IF1 after fault inception, which shows the speed of the proposed
IF2
technique. Thus a directional protection scheme is designed
Fig. 5(b) Phasor representation in case of external fault which distinguishes internal and external fault in case of bus-
As seen from the above analysis, the phase difference of the bar protection, and found to be effective with respect to speed
positive sequence component of the fault and pre-fault current and accuracy.
of the incoming feeder is negative for both internal and The proposed method has also been tested under sudden
external fault situation. But the phase difference in the changed in loading conditions. During sudden load change,
outgoing feeder is positive for internal fault and negative for the phase difference of positive sequence components of the
external fault. Thus the phase difference information of the pre-load and changed load current of outgoing feeders are
outgoing feeder is used to distinguish between internal (bus- estimated and the results are depicted in Table-V. It is found
bar fault) and external fault conditions. A simple rule base that the phase difference for different loading conditions is
with a positive phase difference detects the internal fault and negative and thus prevents issuing the tripping signal. The test
negative phase difference as external fault. cases and corresponding tripping conditions are given in
Table-VI. It is found that in case of internal fault, the tripping
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION conditions are 149 out of 150 cases studied. But in case of
The results are depicted in Table-I through Table-IV. external fault, for 2 cases it malfunctions as tripping signal is
Table-I depicts the phasor information for the incoming generated instead of no-tripping. Similarly, for 1 case in load
feeders for internal fault (bus bar fault) at 0.04 second. As change condition, the tripping signal is generated instead of
seen from the table, the phase difference between pre-fault and no-tripping. It is found that the accuracy is more than 99%
fault current is negative for all fault conditions. Similarly taking all conditions into consideration. The flow chart for
Table-II depicts the phase difference information for incoming distinguishing internal fault and external fault/load changes
feeders for external fault situation at 0.06 second. It is are shown in Fig. 8. Thus the proposed technique is found to
observed that the phase difference is also negative for different be suitable for directional protection of bus-bar which is
fault situation. Thus the phase difference is negative for highly effective with respect to speed and accuracy.
internal and external fault for incoming feeders.
Table-III shows the phase difference for outgoing feeders TABLE I
for internal fault. It is found that the phase difference between PHASOR INFORMATION FOR INTERNAL FAULT (BUS-BAR FAULT)
pre-fault and fault current is positive for internal fault AT 0.04 SEC FOR INCOMING FEEDERS

situation. But the phase difference is negative for external Fault Pre-fault Difference
Mag Phase Mag Phase Mag Phase
fault as depicted in Table-IV. Thus the phase difference is (pu) (rad) (pu) (rad) (pu) (rad)
positive for internal fault and negative for external fault for 4.15 -1.28 0.4 -1.21 3.75 -0.07
outgoing feeders. 5.62 -1.89 0.4 -1.21 5.22 -0.68
The phase-angle difference of fault and pre-fault phasor 4.87 -2.58 0.4 -1.21 4.47 -1.37
may exceed the limits of − π to + π . Thus 2π should be added 3.89 -1.57 0.4 -1.21 3.49 -0.36
5.12 2.79 0.4 -1.21 4.72 -2.28
if the phase difference is more − π and 2π should be 6.14 2.65 0.4 -1.21 5.74 -2.42
subtracted if the phase difference is more than + π . In Table-I, 5.12 -1.52 0.4 -1.21 4.72 -0.31
th th
5 and 6 row results, phase difference is more than the limit
 5

TABLE II
PHASOR INFORMATION FOR EXTERNAL FAULT AT
0.06 SEC FOR INCOMING FEEDERS UNITS FOR
Fault Pre-fault Difference
Mag Phase Mag Phase Mag Phase >0
(pu) (rad) (pu) (rad) (pu) (rad)
3.89 1.31 0.5 1.56 3.39 -0.25
Phase >0 Tripping
4.56 -0.77 0.5 1.56 4.06 -2.33
difference signal
5.14 1.11 0.5 1.56 4.64 -0.45
of outgoing
4.58 0.24 0.5 1.56 4.08 -1.32 >0
feeders
4.89 -0.68 0.5 1.56 4.39 -2.24
5.01 0.65 0.5 1.56 4.51 -0.91
5.45 0.89 0.5 1.56 4.95 -0.67 >0

TABLE III Fig. 6 Tripping logic for proposed system

PHASOR INFORMATION FOR INTERNAL FAULT (BUS-BAR FAULT)
AT 0.04 SEC FOR OUTGOING FEEDERS
Fault Pre-fault Difference 2
Mag Phase Mag Phase Mag Phase
(pu) (rad) (pu) (rad) (pu) (rad) 1.8

1.6
3.89 0.28 0.4 -1.21 3.49 1.49
1.4
4.12 -0.77 0.4 -1.21 3.72 0.44 Tripping signal

phase difference
5.27 1.58 0.4 -1.21 4.87 2.79 1.2 Feeder-4

4.99 -0.57 0.4 -1.21 4.59 0.64 1

5.01 1.52 0.4 -1.21 4.61 2.73 0.8
4.98 0.57 0.4 -1.21 4.58 1.78
5.21 0.98 0.4 -1.21 4.81 2.19 0.6

0.4
Feeder-2
Feeder-3
0.2
Feeder-1
TABLE IV
PHASOR INFORMATION FOR EXTERNAL FAULT 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
AT 0.06 SEC FOR OUTGOING FEEDERS sample

Fault Pre-fault Difference Fig. 7(a) Tripping signal generated for a- phase with fault
Mag Phase Mag Phase Mag Phase inception at 0.027 second
(pu) (rad) (pu) (rad) (pu) (rad)
4.25 -1.31 0.5 1.56 3.75 -2.87
5.21 -2.77 0.5 1.56 4.71 -4.33 2

4.89 -1.58 0.5 1.56 4.39 -3.14 1.8

5.36 0.57 0.5 1.56 4.86 -0.99
1.6
3.14 -0.98 0.5 1.56 2.64 -2.54
4.56 0.65 0.5 1.56 4.06 -0.91 1.4
Feeder-4
Tripping signal
5.14 0.72 0.5 1.56 4.64 -0.84
phase difference

1.2 Feeder-3

0.8

TABLE V 0.6
VI.
PHASOR INFORMATION FOR LOAD CHANGE CONDITIONS 0.4
FOR OUTGOING FEEDERS
Load-change Pre-load change Difference 0.2
Feeder-1 Feeder-2
Mag Phase Mag Phase Mag Phase 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
(pu) (rad) (pu) (rad) (pu) (rad) sample

1.22 1.21 0.5 1.56 0.72 -0.35 Fig. 7(b) Tripping signal generated for a- phase with
1.52 -0.65 0.5 1.56 1.02 -2.21 fault inception at 0.04 second
1.47 -0.88 0.5 1.56 0.97 -2.44
1.17 0.74 0.5 1.56 0.67 -0.82
1.45 -0.38 0.5 1.56 0.95 -1.94
1.28 0.95 0.5 1.56 0.78 -0.61
1.46 1.09 0.5 1.56 0.96 -0.47

VI. CONCLUSIONS
The proposed technique uses time-frequency transform such
TABLE VI as S-transform for directional protection of bus-bar. S-
TEST CASES VERSUS TRIPPING
Events No of cases studied Trip signals transform is used to estimate the phase and amplitude of the
generated fault and pre-fault current signals. The phase difference of
Internal Fault 150 149 positive sequence component of the pre-fault and fault current
External Fault 150 2 signal is the indicator for direction estimation for bus-bar
Load changes 50 1 protection. The tripping signal is issued when the phase
 6

difference of all the outgoing feeders goes positive, otherwise [4] Mohammed, M.E., “High-speed differential busbar protection
using wavelet packet transform,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., Gen.,
not. The tripping signal is issued just after 3/4th cycle from
Transm. Distrib., vol.152, no. 6, pp. 927–933, Nov. 2005.
fault inception showing the fastness of the proposed technique. [5] F. Jiang, Z. Q. Bo, M. A. Redfern, G.Weller, Z. Chen, and D.
Thus a fast and robust directional protection scheme for bus- Xinzhou, “Application of wavelet transform in transient
bar protection is designed using the phase information of the protection-case study: Busbar protection,” in Proc. 7th Inst. Elect.
Eng., Int. Conf. Developments in Power System Protection, Apr.
current signal only, thus reducing the cost of voltage sensors
2001, pp. 197–200.
and related elements. [6] S. P. Valsan and K, S. Swarup, “Computationally efficient
wavelet-transform based digital directional protection for bus
bars”, IEEE Trans. On power delivery,vol.22, no.3, pp.1342-1350,
July 2007.
Start [7] Hong-Tzer Yang, Chiung-Chou Liao, “A de-noising scheme for
enhancing Wavelet-based power quality monitoring system”,
IEEE. Transaction on Power Delivery, Vol.16, No.3, pp.353-360,
July 2001.
Fault and Pre-fault [8] Stockwell, R. G., Mansinha, L., and Lowe, R.P., “Localization
currents of the complex spectrum: The S-transform”, IEEE Trans. on
Signal Processing, 44, pp. 998-1001, 1996.
[9] Pinnegar, C.R and Mansinha, Lalu, “The S-transform with
windows of arbitrary and varying window”, Geophysics, vol-68,
Geophysics, vol-68, pp.381-385, 2003.
Phasor estimation of fault [10] Requirements of Instrument Transformers, ANSI/IEEE Std..
and pre-fault currents using C.57.13,1978
[11] IEEE Guide for the application of Current Transformers used for
S-transform protective relaying purposes, IEEE Std.C37.110,1996.

Phase difference of positive

sequence components (fault
currents and pre-fault current)
in outgoing feeders

Is phase diff of all No

outgoing feeders
positive?
External fault/
Load change

Yes
Internal Fault (Bus-bar fault)

Fig. 8 Flowchart for distinguishing internal and external

fault/load change

VII. REFERENCES

[1] J. M. Wheatley, “A microprocessor based current differential

protection” in Proc. 4th Int. Conf. Developments in Power
Protection, Apr.1989, pp. 116–120.
[2] B.-L. Qin, A. Guzman-Casillas, and E. O. Schweitzer, III, “A
newmethod for protection zone selection in microprocessor-based
bus relays” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 876–887,
Jul. 2000.
[3] C. Li-jun, “The research of the sampling method for CT saturation
for numerical busbar protection,” in Proc. 8th Inst. Elect. Eng., Int.
Conf. Developments in Power System Protection, Apr. 2004, vol.
1, pp. 384–386.