Comparison of performance of antenna arrangements for estimating the number of partial discharge sources using multichannel blind deconvolution

We propose a method to estimate the number of partial discharge sources in multipath environment using the multichannel blind deconvolution method called the super-exponential deflation method. Blind deconvolution is a method of recovering transmitted signals from only observed signals. The deflation approach can extract a source signal which is non-Gaussian from the observed signals one by one. The deflation approach is repeated until all non-Gaussian signals are extracted, in which case the input signals become close to Gaussian noise. The eigenvalues of the spatial correlation matrix of the input signals indicate whether non-Gaussian signals are present or absent in the input signals. Thus, the proposed method estimates the number of sources by repeating the signal extraction and analyzing the eigenvalues using the criterion function to distinguish the presence or absence of the source signals in the observed signals. Appropriate antenna arrangement is an important factor in the effective separation of source signals. The aim of this study is to compare performance of antenna arrangements for estimating the number of PD sources.