A cost effective trigger circuit for an on-line multi-sensor partial discharge monitoring system

This paper proposes a novel multi-sensor approach for Partial Discharge (PD) detection of Power System Apparatus. Three sensors were used to detect partial discharge namely, Radio frequency (RF) antenna, High Frequency Current Transformer (HFCT), and Acoustic Emission (AE) sensor. A cost-effective trigger circuit was implemented to overcome the expensive requirements of the acquisition of RF and CT signals. The trigger circuit initiates the acquisition of the AE signal upon sensing a PD condition by either the RF or CT sensors. The circuit has been designed, simulated and tested experimentally and has been proven to operate properly under various input frequencies and threshold levels.