A vision-based system for monitoring stroke position of ES/DS in GIS

Nowadays, the needs of monitoring and diagnosing electrical facilities have grown fast in the industries and market due to maintenance and repair. Since Gas Insulated Switchgear(GIS) works in a high voltage environment and its malfunction during the operation causes severe damages around the electrical system, it is highly recommended to be managed soundness of GIS in several ways using electromagnetic or acoustic waves. Earthing Switch(ES) and Disconnection Switch(DS) used for inspection and maintenance are also critical components in the GIS, and the moving parts in these switches require considerable reliability and accuracy. In this article, authors propose a new monitory and diagnostic method based on vision system to ensure the reliability of opening and closing operation by detecting the current position of the stroke in the ES/DS. Vision sensor module composed of camera and light is designed as compatible to the existing view window. Images of the moving part captured by calibrated camera should be undistorted and processed to detect the current position of the stroke by recognizing specific pattern on the bar. Harris corner detector and Lucas-Kanade tracking algorithms are applied to extract exact position of the stroke in the images. Although, some issues have still remained in applying the proposed method to the real operating environment, authors confirm the possibility of the vision monitoring system and the algorithm. The proposed method would be sufficiently supportive to the reliable operation of ES/DS in GIS.