Partial discharge pulse localization in excessive noisy data window

The first step in cable insulation assessment based on partial discharge (PD) analysis is PD detection. In this paper, for the first time, a practical, reliable and robust method for extraction of partial discharge pulses, before any attempts for noise reduction, is proposed which is applicable even when they are intensively polluted with additive noise. The proposed method detects PD pulses and delivers narrowed data windows around the positions of PD pulses in a data window which can lessen computational burden and complexity of any further processing by focusing on that part of data that contain PD pulses. The proposed method is also capable of distinguishing fully noise data windows from data windows containing PD pulses contaminated with noise. The proposed method has no limitation in the number of PD pulses in a data window and their position; and its performance has been examined on simulated, laboratory and field measured PD signals.