Automated monitoring and analysis of circuit breaker operation

This paper describes a solution for automated analysis of circuit breaker operation. The analysis is based on a record of waveforms taken from the circuit breaker control circuit by using a portable recorder and manually forcing an operation of the breaker. This solution was driven by a need to perform the analysis in a more timely and consistent manner than what is available with existing technology. The solution is implemented using advanced wavelet transforms for waveform feature extraction and an expert system for decision making. A web-based database solution for storing and retrieving both the field-recorded and processed data is also implemented. The software is developed in two versions: for field (substation) as well as off-line (office) applications.