Preliminary investigation into the use of the cross Wigner-Ville distribution to detect high impedance earth faults in power systems

This paper presents the results of a preliminary investigation into the viability of using the cross Wigner-Ville distribution (XWVD) in the detection of high impedance earth faults in power systems. High impedance earth faults are characterised an extremely low current with a time varying spectral characteristic superimposed on the mains current. It is shown that the XWVD provides a good identification of the extremely small high impedance arc fault current with signal to noise ratios as low as -10dB.