This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TIA.2019.2911568, IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications
Analysis of Power System Harmonic Subgroups of
the Electric Arc Furnace Currents Based on a Hybrid
Time-Frequency Analysis Method
Erhan Sezgin, Student Member, IEEE, Özgül Salor, Senior Member, IEEE
Gazi University, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Ankara, Turkey
sezginerhan@gazi.edu.tr, salordurna@gazi.edu.tr
Abstract—In this paper, a hybrid time-frequency analysis
method, specially developed to decompose harmonic subgroups
and interharmonics of the electric arc furnace (EAF) currents,
which are highly time varying due to the operation principles of
the EAFs, is presented. The main objective is accurate
perception of harmonics and interharmonics in cases of rapid
changes or power quality (PQ) events in power system voltages
and currents. Harmonic and interharmonics detection has been
achieved using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), which
provides time-localization in cases of highly time-varying
signals. Although DWT elicits accurate spectral decomposition
at low frequencies, and especially at the baseband, bandwidths of
the band-pass filters increase which results in loss of accuracy at
higher frequencies. In order to avoid this problem, power signals
are modulated by complex exponential waveforms, which
corresponds to shifting the required harmonic sub-band contents
to the baseband, where the accuracy of the DWT is the best.
Using the proposed hybrid combination of DWT and complex
exponential modulation, time domain waveform of each
harmonic sub-band of the EAF currents can be estimated close to
ideal values. The method also enables to focus on any required
interharmonic sub-band in addition to the harmonics. To
optimize the performance of DWT in cases of PQ events, various
windowing approaches are discussed. The proposed harmonic
and interharmonic estimation method has been verified on both
synthetic data and EAF currents collected from the electricity
transmission system. Estimated harmonic and interharmonic
waveforms can serve as a good reference in many areas
including active power filtering operations, limit violation
determinations, and etc. in the power system.
Index Terms — Complex Exponential Modulation, Discrete
Wavelet Transform, Electric Arc Furnace (EAF), Frequency
Shifting, Interharmonics, Power System Harmonics,
Wavelets.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical Arc Furnaces (EAFs) are special types of
loads for a power system, being the sources of unexpected
power system frequency components, such as even
harmonics and significant amounts of interharmonics in
addition to the expected power system harmonics.
Moreover, these components are highly time-varying, i.e.
the amplitudes of the components need to be recomputed
in almost every cycle of the fundamental frequency.
Therefore, analysis of EAF currents and voltages requires
special attention. Power system harmonics are usually
analyzed by Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) based
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frequency analysis methods [1]. The calculated DFT
coefficients have no time dependence and the variation of
the components in time cannot be traced, once the DFT
coefficients are obtained, which is an important
disadvantage when time-varying EAF currents are
considered. Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT), which
is the DFT applied on short-time windowed signals, is
introduced to keep track of the variation of the frequency
components in time [1]. In the DFT-based methods, in
order to increase the resolution in the frequency-domain,
the window size in time-domain should be increased,
which causes the loss of localization in time, i.e. the
variations of the frequency components in time are
observed as their averages inside the window. For the
signal to be stationary inside the analysis window, the
window size has to be reduced, however, this causes DFT
frequency resolution to be decreased.
As an alternative to DFT-based methods for the
harmonic analysis in power systems, Discrete Wavelet
Transform (DWT) has been proposed to overcome the
time-frequency resolution problem [2]. DWT is
implemented by applying filter banks on signals, which
make it possible to separate frequency bands from each
other. Decomposition is achieved in two consecutive steps,
which are High Pass (HP) filtering and Low Pass (LP)
filtering first and then down sampling operations to
produce detail and approximation coefficients, respectively
[3]. The same procedure is applied on the approximation
coefficients at each turn repetitively to obtain increased
frequency resolution. As the coefficients calculated by
DWT stand for the signal contents bounded in the
frequency bands, time domain values of power, energy or
RMS can be computed directly using these coefficients
with proper mathematical operations [4]. Similar approach
has been used for harmonic analysis of power signals in
various research work in the literature [4] - [5]. Dyadic
distribution of the sub-bands in DWT analysis may not be
efficient for the power signal analysis, where uniform
harmonic subgroup computations are required. Filtering
high-frequency coefficients together with the low-
frequency coefficients at each level repetitively will yield a
uniform frequency subset contrary to DWT and this
operation is called as Discrete Wavelet Packet Transform
(DWPT). The coefficients obtained by DWPT have also
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been used widely in power and RMS calculations, as well proposed method is verified and applied on signals
[5]- [6]. produced using field data. Section V presents the
The calculations made by DWPT coefficients have also conclusions.
been discussed in the view of PQ standards [6] to calculate
odd harmonics. Using proper structure, harmonic group II. PROPOSED METHOD
computations defined by the International Electrotechnical Regardless of the type of the wavelet selected, research
Commission (IEC) are also investigated in similar results and the simulations made during this work have
approach [7]. To obtain the time domain waveforms of the shown that the best filter response is obtained using filters,
frequency bands, back transform must be applied on the which provide approximation coefficients [1].
coefficients calculated by DWT or DWPT. Reconstruction Reconstruction of the coefficients calculated with DWPT,
of frequency content requires upsampling on coefficients harmonic signals are calculated with a big amount of error
and quadrature mirrors of the fılters used for including large oscillations and spectral leakages.
decomposition to convolve upsampled coefficients in each Moreover, there are deterministic limitations in locating
level [3]. However, to the knowledge of the authors, filters over frequency spectrum as filter frequencies
obtaining the time-domain waveform from wavelet sub- depend on sampling frequencies of the signals. Because,
band information has not been reported in the power in DWT and DWPT, analysis bandwidths are constructed
system literature yet. by splitting the frequency band into two equal bands at
The estimation accuracy of the coefficients of the each level. Therefore, with DWPT, it is not possible to
frequency bands closely depends on the type of the wavelet reconstruct the time domain waveform from any selected
used in decomposition and reconstruction operations. frequency band of the upper levels and higher frequency
While perfect reconstruction of the signal is possible by resolutions. During the tests conducted in this study, it has
using all the DWT coefficients, reconstruction using only been observed that DWT presents its best results with its
certain coefficients to obtain the individual frequency approximation coefficients at the lowest frequency band,
components of time signals, has some drawbacks due to irrespective of the selected wavelet function. Hence, the
spectral leakages [6], oscillations, aliasing, and etc. [8]. As
x(t)
the number of levels of the DWT and the number of bands
of the DWPT increase, these problems become more
visible [7]. Filtering coefficients with both HP and LP
filters in consecutive levels disrupt the frequency
characteristics of the frequency band in DWPT and their
frequency responses are generally worse than claimed fm fm
theoretically [9].
Cosine
Multiplication
Sine
Multiplication }A
To reduce the drawbacks of DWPT, investigated
c
frequencies are seated at the center of the bands generally. xm(t) xms (t)
Single Side Band (SSB) modulation is proposed to shift the
investigated frequency components to more available DWT of Cosine DWT of Sine
locations on the frequency axis on a similar structure of [6]
Multiplied
Signal
Multiplied
Signal
}B
and time domain waveform tracking is aimed in [10].
c s
Computational burden and the effect of the unfiltered Xm,T Xm,T
interharmonics on real time applications are found to be
essential limitations in [10]. IDWT of IDWT of

In this paper, a method involving a hybrid usage of

Approximation
Coefficients
Approximation
Coefficients }C
DWT and complex exponential modulation to extract
x~m,h(t)
s
x~m,h(t)
c
harmonic subgroups of EAF currents is proposed.
Complex exponential modulation is used to shift the
frequency band to be analyzed to the baseband, taking the fm fm
advantage of the fact that the filter response of the DWT
Cosine
Multiplication
Sine
Multiplication }D
approximation coefficients provides much better results
x~d,h(t) x~d,h(t)
c s
than that of the detail coefficients. Please note that an
initial version of this paper has been presented in the
Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting 2018 [11].
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In Section
II, proposed time frequency analysis method is explained x~h(t)
in detail. In Section III, the important issues on DWT on Fig. 1. Block diagram of the proposed DWT based harmonic
windowed signals are discussed. In Section IV, the subgroup analysis method.

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desired frequency bands are shifted to the baseband
around zero Hz before application of the DWT. The block
diagram of the proposed solution is given in Fig. 1, and it
consists of four main tasks. While A and D block pair
consists of complex exponential modulation to shift
frequency bands to the base band and then back to the
original band, respectively, B and C block pair utilizes
DWT and IDWT using only approximation coefficients to
decompose signal into frequency bands and reconstruct
harmonic waveform in time domain, respectively. Blocks
A to D in Fig. 1 are explained in detail in the following
subsections.
A. Shifting the Subgroup to zero Hz
Shifting frequencies around zero Hz is achieved by
modulating signals with complex exponentials oscillating
around the interested harmonic frequencies. This approach
corresponds to frequency shifting of signals and
multiplication-convolution conversion between time and
frequency domains [12]. In fact, this frequency shifting
with complex exponentials operation is also known as
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation [13].
Multiplication of the signals with exponentials yields
low (around zero Hz) and high frequency (around twice the
required frequency) components, which are decomposed
by DWT operation in this work. Since only the
approximation coefficients generated by DWT are used for
reconstructing the required sub-band signal for IDWT, in
fact only the components shifted to zero Hz are used for
reconstruction and this lets only the required band
components to be regenerated.
Let x(t) be a power signal including a number of
frequency components. x(t) can be expressed as sum of
sinusoidal signals having varying amplitudes (Ai), phase
shifts (θi) and frequencies (fi) as given in (1).
𝑥(𝑡) = ∑𝑘𝑖=1 𝐴𝑖 𝑐𝑜𝑠(2𝜋𝑓𝑖 𝑡 + 𝜃𝑖 )
In (1), k is the number of sinusoidal components that
x(t) contains. To shift fmth (m[1,k]) frequency component
to zero Hz, x(t) is modulated with a complex exponential
oscillating with fm as shown in (2) and (3). xm(t) contains
cosine (xm,c(t)) and sine (xm,s(t)) parts as stated in (4). xm(t)
can be decomposed as given in (5) and (6).
𝑥𝑚 (𝑡) = 𝑥(𝑡)𝑒 −𝑗2𝜋𝑓𝑚𝑡
𝑒 −𝑗2𝜋𝑓𝑚 𝑡 1
= (cos(2𝜋𝑓𝑚 𝑡) − 𝑗𝑠𝑖𝑛(2𝜋𝑓𝑚 𝑡))
2 components of xm(t), both sine and cosine modulated
1
𝑥𝑚 (𝑡) = (𝑥𝑚,𝑐 (𝑡) + 𝑥𝑚,𝑠 (𝑡))
2
Expanding (4) in detail, low and high frequency
components of modulated signals are given as in (5) and
(6). Low frequency components of the signals are
accumulated around zero Hz in both.
𝐴
𝑥𝑚,𝑐 (𝑡) = ∑𝑘𝑖=1 (𝑐𝑜𝑠(2𝜋(𝑓𝑚 − 𝑓𝑖 )𝑡 − 𝜃𝑖 ) + 𝑐𝑜𝑠(2𝜋(𝑓𝑚 + 𝑓𝑖 ) + 𝜃𝑖 )) (5)
𝑖
2
−𝐴
𝑥𝑚,𝑠 (𝑡) = ∑𝑘𝑖=1 (𝑠𝑖𝑛(2𝜋(𝑓𝑚 − 𝑓𝑖 )𝑡 − 𝜃𝑖 ) + 𝑠𝑖𝑛(2𝜋(𝑓𝑚 + 𝑓𝑖 ) + 𝜃𝑖 )) (6)
𝑖
2
The illustration of shifting frequency components to
the origin is shown in Fig. 2, where 7th harmonic
content is shifted around zero Hz before DWT
operation. As shown in Fig. 2, the filter responses of the
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Magnitude [V]
f 2f 3f 4f 5f 6f 7f
Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 2. Harmonic subgroup shifting to the baseband, where the filter
responses in red is the best in the proposed method
DWT in red have a flat spectrum below the
fundamental frequency f. However, responses are far
from being ideal at higher frequencies, which will cause
distortions after reconstruction. Therefore, any
required harmonic subgroup, such as the 7th harmonic
subgroup example in Fig.2, is shifted to the baseband
before DWT.
B. Use of Discrete Wavelet Transform
DWT can be used safely to filter out the low frequency
components of modulated signals. To achieve this, only
approximation coefficients of the final filter bank are taken
into account during reconstruction as they carry the lowest
frequency components. Detail coefficients do not have to
be calculated, in this work, as they will not be used in the
following steps. In Fig. 3, first three levels of the n-level
filter bank structure are presented. The input of this
structure is the discrete time signal, which is sampled with
a sampling frequency of fs. At each level of this structure,
signal is convolved with predetermined filter coefficients,
which stand for HP and LP filters. Then down sampling
operation is conducted to get lower frequency outputs. At
the final level of the filter bank, the approximation
coefficients carry the information of zero Hz to fs/2n+1 Hz.
(1) Here, n represents the numerical value of the level. Thus
the narrower the frequency band to be extracted, the higher
the number of levels required in this structure.
As increasing levels may cause increasing computation
time, power signals can be down-sampled at the beginning
of computations provided that Nyquist sampling criterion is
satisfied for the highest harmonic subgroup to be
(2) computed.
(3) In the proposed method, to filter out low frequency
(4) signals in (5) and (6) are subjected to DWT operation
separately. This makes it possible to use different types of
wavelets for xm,c(t) and xm,s(t), which provides the
opportunity to select the wavelets separately for each
column of the block diagram in Fig. 1, to obtain the best
possible reconstructed subgroup time-domain waveforms.
In other words, an optimized set of wavelets can be
selected separately for sine and cosine modulated signals
of each subgroup of the power signal.
In Fig. 3, frequency contents existing at the input and
expected at the output of each filter are shown at each level
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HPFD
fs/4-fs/2
xm(t)
HPFD
0-fs/2 fs/8-fs/4
LPFD HPFD
0-fs/4 fs/16-fs/8
LPFD
0-fs/8 Xm,T
LPFD ...
n+1
0-fs/16 0-fs/2

Fig. 3. n-level filter bank structure of DWT decomposition (First three levels are shown)

and, Xm,T represents the approximation coefficients of the

transform at the last level. The number of levels determines
the width of frequency band represented by the
approximation coefficients, Xm,T. The structure in Fig. 3 is
applied to xm,c(t) and xm,s(t) separately, hence the input xm(t)
represents one or other.
C. Use of Inverse Discrete Wavelet Transform
Up to now, steps A and B given in the block diagram
given in Fig. 1 are completed. To obtain time domain
waveforms of the required harmonic subgroup, IDWT
must be applied on the modified form of the DWT
coefficients calculated in Fig. 3. Here, modification of the
DWT corresponds to taking the approximation coefficients
as they are and equating the rest (detail coefficients) to
zero. In fact, reconstruction of the filter outputs
independently, while equating the rest to zero, yields the
time domain waveform estimations of the corresponding
bands, located in a logarithmically changing scale on the
frequency axis. By this way frequency bands can be
separately reconstructed.
Using the approximation coefficients (𝑋𝑚,𝑇 ) and zero
arrays substituted for the detail coefficients, low frequency
components of the sine and cosine modulated signal can be
calculated separately with negligible errors when a proper
set of wavelets types is chosen. Proposed reconstruction
structure utilizing this approach is illustrated in Fig. 4.
D. Demodulation of Estimated Harmonic Subgroup
Once time domain waveforms of low frequency
components are obtained from approximation coefficients,
a further exponential modulation is executed to shift low
frequency signals back to their actual locations in the
frequency axis. Demodulation process is presented by the
equations from (7) to (9). In (7), 𝑥̃𝑚 (𝑡) represents the
summation of the low frequency components in (5) and
(6), which are filtered out by DWT and hence k in (7) is
limited by fs/2n+1 Hz, as can also be understood from Figs.
3 and 4. Then, 𝑥̃𝑚 (𝑡) is modulated by the exponential,
𝑒 −𝑗2𝜋𝑓𝑚𝑡 , in (8) and it yields a summation of the frequency
components around fm, defined by 𝑥̃𝑑 (𝑡). Note that,
“around fm” means the neighborhood of fm, which is
determined by fs/2n+1 Hz and is directly related to the
number of levels used in DWT. In (9), l is the number of
frequency components inside this neighborhood. The band
obtained here can be tuned to obtain the subgroup or group
computations of power harmonic signals by adjusting the
number of levels of DWT. Using this this approach makes
it possible to calculate the desired band with a small
amount of error () as given in (9).
𝐴
𝑥̃𝑚 (𝑡) = ∑𝑘𝑖=1 (𝑐𝑜𝑠(2𝜋(𝑓𝑚 − 𝑓𝑖 )𝑡 − 𝜃𝑖 ) − 𝑠𝑖𝑛(2𝜋(𝑓𝑚 − 𝑓𝑖 )𝑡 − 𝜃𝑖 )) + 𝑚 (7)
𝑖
2
𝑥̃𝑑 (𝑡) = 2𝑥̃𝑚 (𝑡)𝑒 −𝑗2𝜋𝑓𝑚𝑡 (8)
𝑥̃𝑑 (𝑡) = ∑𝑚+𝑙
𝑖=𝑚−𝑙 𝐴𝑖 𝑐𝑜𝑠(2𝜋𝑓𝑖 𝑡 + 𝜃𝑖 ) + 𝑑 (9)

[0, ,0]
HPFR
fs/2-fs/4
x~m,h(t)
[0, ,0]
HPFR +
fs/8-fs/4 0-fs/2

[0, ,0]
HPFR + LPFR
0-fs/4

+ LPFR
0-fs/8
Xm,T
... LPFR
n+1
0-fs/2 0-fs/16

Fig. 4. n-level filter bank structure of IDWT for reconstruction (Last three levels are shown).

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III. KEY POINTS OF APPLYING WAVELET TRANSFORM

ON WINDOWED SIGNALS
In this section, some important issues related to the
application of the DWT are discussed. There are three
main key points to be taken into consideration.
The first point is to determine the analysis window
size. Since the resolution in frequency domain is
proportional to the reciprocal of the frequency of the
windowed signal, minimum window length should be well
determined. The common periods of the required
frequency components should be considered while
window size is chosen.
The second point is the signal extension at the
beginning and end of the analysis window, which is called
padding. Padding is required due to the fact that
convolution operation needs initial conditions at the Fig. 5. Proposed Windowing Method
beginning and end of each analysis window. Otherwise, signal period is ignored, extracted harmonic signals may
using zero initial and final conditions yields incorrect carry phase jumps on the edges of the windows. Overall
results. Padding method should be discussed clearly as it signal period is calculated using the Least Common
is required at each level of both DWT and IDWT Multiple (LCM) of the harmonic components.
operations. Morever, as the depth of the analysis evolves
in DWT, reduced sampling frequency makes the effect of B. Padding
the initial conditions much more emphasized. Since the method proposed requires windowing
The third important issue is the sampling rate since it before DWT application, samples at the borders of the
determines the number of levels required in DWT analysis window should be treated carefully [14]. Unless a proper
to achieve the investigated harmonic subgroup frequency padding method is used, the borders of the estimated time-
band. Achieving analysis for narrower frequency bands domain signal of the harmonic subgroup will be chopped
with higher sampling rates, needs more levels in DWT because of the discrete convolution operations applied
analysis. both in DWT and IDWT. The method proposed here
All these key points affect the performance of Time- focuses on both symmetrical and periodic padding
Frequency Analysis Methods, considerably. Detailed approaches for different sampling frequencies and in cases
explanation on each key point is given in the following of various PQ events.
subsections. Periodic and symmetrical padding for one cycle at the
A. Windowing beginning and end of 10-cycle window of field data are
illustrated in Fig. 6.a and 6.b, respectively. This operation
IEC standard proposes to use 10 cycles of the has to be repeated at each level before the filtering
fundamental period of the measured signal in harmonic operation of both DWT (Fig.3) and IDWT (Fig.4)
analysis. When 10 cycles of voltage signal with exactly
50.0Hz fundamental frequency is analyzed with DFT, 5Hz
frequency resolution is achieved in frequency domain.
This resolution is found to be adequate for harmonic
subgroup detection in PQ analysis applications.
In this paper, sliding windows are used throughout the
signal for each order of the harmonics. In Fig. 5, sample
signal obtained from field measurements is evaluated for a
window having duration of 200 ms. The evaluation of the
measured signal is sustained with sliding windows for 20
ms, i.e. with windows overlapping 180 ms, at each turn.
Thus, time-variation of the extracted harmonic signals are
traced more accurately comparing with non-overlapping
200-ms windows. Using overlapping windows every 20
ms, extracted subgroup harmonic signals are updated for
each cycle of the measured signal.
Overall measured signal period is another important Fig. 6. Proposed extension methods on windowed signals for DWT
parameter that affects the window size. If the overall and IDWT, (a) symmetrical padding, (b) periodical padding.

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considering the chosen wavelet length. Table 1. Frequency components with the highest 15 amplitudes
While electrical power signals usually show periodic obtained from field data (EAF current).
and stationary characteristics inside 10-cycle period, in i fi (Hz) Ai (A) θi (Deg)
cases of EAF currents, symmetrical padding presents 1 0 1,892 180
much better performance at the borders of the highly time- 2,186 71,56
2 45
varying signals. Also, padding a swell, sag or interruption
carrying signal periodically may distort the estimations at 3 50 54,295 91,921
the borders of the analysis window. Therefore, 4 55 2,276 -98,477
symmetrical padding approach is promoted when EAF 5 60 1,238 -84,768
currents are considered. 6 65 0,939 -77,799
In both padding approaches, a latter truncation
7 100 0,933 -28,152
operation has to be executed after down/upsampling
operation for perfect reconstruction. 8 130 1,196 -105,142
9 150 2,064 -135,701
C. Sampling Rate
10 250 9,820 17,219
The proposed method may be applied on signals with
11 255 1,025 -156,393
both high and low sampling frequencies. Since
symmetrical padding shows better performance in case of 12 345 1,170 160,437
abrupt changes at the borders, it should be preferred as far 13 350 6,709 175,8
as possible. Otherwise, amplitude spillover may be 14 355 1,323 -9,716
encountered as in DFT-based methods. The simulations 0,927 -4,794
15 550
have shown that, the signals with low sampling frequency
(such as 1.6 KHz) show good performance in both Increasing the sampling frequency lets us to observe higher
padding methods. But the signals with high sampling orders of harmonics, on the other hand, it increases the
frequency (such as 25.6 KHz – i.e. 512 samples per cycle) number of levels required in DWT analysis and finally the
need periodical padding for perfect reconstruction. The computational burden.
performance of proposed method is given in Section IV. x(t) is defined as sum of the harmonic components
Symmetrical padding approach is used when a PQ event given in Table 1. Proposed method is applied on x(t) to
occurs in the middle of the windowed signal. extract time domain waveform of 7th harmonic order that
IV. VERIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED METHOD USING coincides with 350 Hz. IEC proposes to use subgroup
FIELD DATA computation on harmonic analysis in [15] as the energy of
harmonic signals is distributed among neighboring
To verify the performance of the proposed method, test components as given in Lines 12-14 on Table 1. To move
signals are generated directly from the analysis of field 7th harmonic subgroup to zero Hz, fm is set to 350 Hz. x(t)
measurements of currents obtained from an EAF plant is modulated as given in (5-6). Both sine and cosine parts
supplied from the electricity transmission system of of modulated signals are directed to DWT independently.
Turkey. The EAF plant is in the southern part of the There are many types of wavelets, which can be used in
country, where EAF plants are densely located. The field the proposed method. In order to select the wavelets
data of EAF currents, sampled at 25.6 KHz, are down- providing the most accurate reconstructions of the specific
sampled to 1.6 KHz before analysis and DFT is used to harmonic subgroup, a wavelet cluster is generated to test
determine the largest 15 harmonic magnitudes. The their performances and select the best ones. All the
frequency indexes (i), frequency values (fi), amplitudes (Ai) decomposition and reconstruction filters of the wavelets
and phase shifts (θi) are given in Table 1 for the selected 15 given in Table 2 are produced by the Wavelet Toolbox of
harmonics from the field-data. Synthetic data is
regenerated from these values, so that exact values of the Table 2. The types of the wavelets tested with the proposed method.
signal composition are known by the authors so as to make The number of
Wavelet Family Wavelets
comparisons with the results of the proposed approach. wavelets
Hence, a controlled form of the field-data is generated Daubechies db1 … db45 45
before the verification process. Coiflets coif1 … coif5 5
The sampling frequency (fs) of the test signal is chosen Symlets sym2 … sym25 24
as 1.6 KHz that allows analysis of the harmonic Fejer-Korowkin fk4 … fk22 5
components up to 16th harmonic in a power system Discrete Meyer dmey 1
operating at 50 Hz fundamental frequency. This sampling
Biorthogonal bior1.1 … bior6.8 15
frequency had also been used before to calculate the
Reverse rbior1.1 …
magnitudes of harmonics by DWPT in the literature [6]. Biorthogonal rbior6.8
15

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MATLAB. Detailed explanations of the wavelets given in

Table 2 can be found in [16]. All of the 110 wavelets in
Table 2, are assigned to filter the low frequency
components of both the cosine and sine modulated signals.
Since cosine and sine modulation and demodulation are
achieved in parallel, different types of wavelets can be
assigned to each. Hence a total number of combinations of
121000 cases result. The best four wavelet couples are
selected based on the reconstruction accuracy of the
harmonic subgroups.
As an example, modulating signals with fm = 350 Hz,
the 7th harmonic component is moved to zero Hz and 700
Hz. 700 Hz is out of concern for the proposed method,
since only operation around zero Hz is carried on. Then the
345 Hz and 355 Hz, the neighboring frequencies of the
seventh harmonic, are moved to 5 Hz. Filtering out these
components, the bandwidth of approximation coefficients Fig. 7. Visualization of the signals given in Table 1. (a) The
fundamental component (f3), (b) 7th Harmonic subgroup (f12-14), (c)
can be chosen as 12,5 Hz. To have this resolution, six-level Sum of all the harmonic and interharmonic components (f1-15-f3),
filter bank is required, when the sampling frequency is 1.6 and (d) Sum of all the frequency components including the
KHz. Reconstruction from the approximation coefficients fundamental (f1-15).
by proper reconstruction filters with IDWT, low frequency harmonics and interharmonis and the whole signal are
time domain signals corresponding to the sine and cosine given in Fig. 7 (a), (b), (c), and (d), respectively. The input
modulated parts are obtained. In each case, the filtered low waveform of the proposed method is shown in Fig. 7 (d)
frequency parts of the modulated signals are demodulated and the expected result after the proposed method is
as proposed in (8). Summing up the cosine and sine applied to get the 7th harmonic subgroup is given in Fig. 7
demodulated signals, time domain waveform of the 7th (b). Comparison of the result of the proposed method
harmonic subgroup is calculated. together with the original 7th harmonic subgroup is given in
In each case, RMS values of the estimated signals (𝑥̃𝑑𝑅𝑀𝑆 ) Fig. 8. As seen in the figure, estimated and actual signal
for a period of 200 ms are calculated and compared with samples are almost same. This shows that the algorithm
those of the true values of the harmonic subgroup (𝑥𝑑𝑅𝑀𝑆 ). provides successful estimation of the time domain
The error of the estimations is calculated as given in (10). waveforms of the 7th harmonic subgroup when the signal is
̃𝑅𝑀𝑆
𝑥 𝑑 −𝑥𝑑
𝑅𝑀𝑆
𝑅𝑀𝑆 = (10) stationary.
𝑥𝑅𝑀𝑆
𝑑 To visualize frequency domain representations of the
Out of a number of cases where the error in (10) is less signals generated at each step of the algorithm, DFT is
than 10-4, four wavelet combinations are determined and applied on the signals at each step. Magnitude and phase
they are listed in Table 3 for this example. spectrums of the signals are given in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10.
To visualize the results obtained during the test, the
wavelet pair determined in the 4th line of Table 3 is used.
This pair contains a couple of Symlet wavelets with
different numbers of coefficients. These wavelets are
known to be more symmetric form of the Daubechies
wavelets [17], which are commonly used in this area.
Algorithm is tested for the stationary signal regenerated
from the amplitudes and phases given in Table 1 for a
period of 200 ms. Time domain waveforms of the
fundamental component, 7th harmonic subgroup, all

Table 3. Optimal wavelet pairs to calculate 7th harmonic subgroup

waveform
Case Cosine Part Sine Part 𝑅𝑀𝑆
94 db1 sym9 1.7×10-5
5942 fk22 db2 1.8×10-5 Fig. 8. Comparison of the estimated (𝑥̃ℎ (t)) and the actual (𝑥ℎ (t)) 7th
sym15 6×10-5 harmonic subgroup. (a) Current signals are plotted together for the
6150 dmey analysis window of 200 ms, (b) the first 25 ms of the results, (c)
11094 sym16 sym9 8.5×10-5 results between 100 and 125 ms, (d) the last 25 ms of the results.

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Fig. 9. Visualization of the magnitudes of the frequency content at
each step of the algorithm. (a) Current signal with fundamental and
harmonics (x(t)), (b) after cosine modulation (𝑥𝑚 𝑐
(t)), (c) after
filtration of the cosine modulated signal (𝑥̃𝑚,ℎ 𝑐
(t)), (d) after the cosine
demodulation of filtered signal (𝑥̃𝑑,ℎ 𝑐
(t)), (e) after sine modulation
𝑠 𝑠
(𝑥𝑚 (t)), (f) after filtration of the sine modulated signal (𝑥̃𝑚,ℎ (t)), (g)
𝑠
after the sine demodulation of filtered signal (𝑥̃𝑑,ℎ (t)), (h) the sum of
the cosine and sine demodulated signals which coincide with the
desired harmonic subgroup (𝑥̃ℎ (t)).
Note that (a)s and (h)s of Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 represent
the frequency components of input and the output signals
(estimated 7th harmonic subgroup with the proposed
method), respectively. Likewise, (b)s and (e)s represent the
frequency components of the sine and cosine modulated
signals, whereas (c)s and (f)s represent the frequency
components of the outputs of IDWT. (d)s and (g)s of Fig. 9
Fig. 10. Visualization of the phase angles of the frequency content
at each step of the algorithm. (a) Current signal with fundamental
𝑐
and harmonics (x(t)), (b) after cosine modulation (𝑥𝑚 (t)), (c) after
𝑐
filtration of the cosine modulated signal (𝑥̃𝑚,ℎ (t)), (d) after the cosine
𝑐
demodulation of filtered signal (𝑥̃𝑑,ℎ (t)), (e) after sine modulation
𝑠 𝑠
(𝑥𝑚 (t)), (f) after filtration of the sine modulated signal (𝑥̃𝑚,ℎ (t)), (g)
𝑠
after the sine demodulation of filtered signal (𝑥̃𝑑,ℎ (t)), (h) the sum of
the cosine and sine demodulated signals which coincide with the
desired harmonic subgroup (𝑥̃ℎ (t)).
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and Fig. 10 represent the frequency components of the
outputs of sine and cosine demodulated signals. The
amplitudes and phases of the signals generated at each step
of the proposed method in Figs. 6 and 7, demonstrate all
the expected results of the operations, such as modulation,
IDWT with approximation coefficients, demodulation and
summation of the demodulation with sine and cosine.
Once the reliability of the algorithm is proven by tests
with steady state waveforms, the same test signal is
distorted by a short-term PQ event to present a detailed
comparison between DFT-based analysis and the
proposed method. The signal used in this test is the
modified form of the signal in Fig. 7 (d). The event is
generated by multiplying this signal with a window
attenuating the samples after 40 ms by factor of 0.25
causing a sudden current sag event. The response of any
algorithm to this sudden decrease in the current, provides
a measure of the ability of the algorithm to adapt to time-
varying cases. The proposed method is applied on this
distorted current signal to obtain the 7th harmonic
subgroup waveform. Then to compare the proposed
algorithm with the classical approach, DFT is applied on
the input signal and subgroup computation is achieved
using the 7th harmonic subgroup frequency components,
which are 345, 350 and 355 Hz. The time domain signals
are reconstructed for the 200 ms window by summing up
the signals at the subgroup frequency components
obtained from the DFT. The original 7th harmonic
subgroup signal and its estimations are shown together in
Fig. 11. As seen in Fig. 11, using subgroup computations
helps to improve the stationary estimation of DFT-based
method, however it is not good at following the time-
variations in the original signal. The results obtained by
the proposed method, on the other hand, takes
approximately five cycles of the 7th harmonic, which is
less than a cycle of the fundamental frequency to approach
the sudden current decrease at the 40th ms. Then it tracts
the current variations accurately. RMS errors of the
Fig. 11. Comparison of the original 7th harmonic subgroup
waveform with the estimations of the proposed and DFT-based
methods.
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Transactions on Industry Applications
proposed algorithm and the DFT-based estimation from
the 200 ms data window for the 7th harmonic are also
compared. The RMS error of the proposed method turns
out to be 2.26%, while it is 9.86% with the DFT-based
estimation for this case.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a new hybrid time-frequency analysis
method is proposed to extract the waveforms of the
harmonic subgroups of Electric Arc Furnace (EAF)
currents. Harmonic subgroups defined in the IEC Standard
61000-4-7 are extracted using the approximation
coefficients of the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT),
which provide higher accuracy compared with the detail
coefficients. In order to use the approximation coefficients
for all required frequency bands, complex exponential
modulation is used in the preprocessing block to shift the
required frequency components to the baseband. The aim
of this work is to provide a fast and accurate estimation of
the EAF harmonic subgroups to serve as reference signals
for active power filter applications.
Since the harmonics of the EAF currents are highly
time-varying due to their operation principles, reduced
computational complexity is as important as the accuracy
of the estimated harmonic subgroups. Once the time
domain waveform is obtained for the lowest frequency
band using DWT, it is shifted back to its original band by
demodulating it with complex exponentials to extract the
time-domain waveform of the required harmonic
subgroup.
In order to extract the time domain waveforms of
rapidly time-varying harmonic subgroups of EAF
currents, a set of wavelets optimized to each harmonic has
to be used together with a proper padding method.
Applying the proposed algorithm to the non-stationary
measurement cases of EAF currents obtained from the
electricity transmission system, it has been shown that
more accurate estimations of harmonic subgroups are
obtained compared with the results of the classical DFT-
based harmonic subgroup computation. Moreover, the
proposed method is robust to fundamental frequency
deviations, because the modulation frequency is adjusted
to be the exact integer multiple of the detected frequency
corresponding to the harmonic group. This is an advantage
of the proposed method over the DFT based methods.
The structure of the proposed algorithm is suitable for
parallel programing and computing, since the harmonic
subgroup extraction for each harmonic involves the same
procedure repeated for each harmonic subgroup.
Therefore, the computation time can be reduced
significantly by using Field Programmable Gate Arrays
(FPGAs) [18] or Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) [19],
as proposed recently in cases of increasing amount of
computations in the literature. The proposed method can
be implemented on a GPU framework to achieve real-time
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and accurate estimations of all harmonic subgroup
waveforms so as to serve reference signals to active power
filters of the compensation systems of EAF plants.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Authors would like to thank the Public Research
Institutions and Development Projects Support Group
(KAMAG) of the Scientific and Technological Research
Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for supporting the core
technologies used in the measurements. This work is also
supported by TUBITAK with the project code of
115E129.
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Transactions on Industry Applications

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