Multichannel acquisition system and denoising for the detection and location of partial discharges using acoustic emissions

In this paper an instrumentation system with multichannel acquisition and denoising is described and characterized for detecting and locating acoustic emissions from partial discharges in oil. A fiber optic immersed sensor and four external ultrasonic piezoelectric sensors where used in this implementation. A signal processing system based on the use of digital denoising techniques and location algorithms implemented with virtual instrumentation is proposed. Finally, an experimental platform of acoustic testing is used to characterize the performance of the instrumentation system with different types of signals and S/N ratios.