Comparison of two partial discharge classification
methods
J. A. Hunter*, L. Hao and P. L. Lewin
School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton
Southampton, United Kingdom
E-mail (*): jh09r@ecs.soton.ac.uk
Abstract—Two signal classification methods have been examined
to discover their suitability for the task of partial discharge (PD)
identification. An experiment has been designed to artificially
mimic signals produced by a range of PD sources that are known
to occur within high voltage (HV) items of plant. The bushing tap
point of a large Auto-transformer has been highlighted as a
possible point on which to attach PD sensing equipment and is
utilized in this experiment. Artificial PD signals are injected into
the HV electrode of the bushing itself and a high frequency
current transformer (HFCT) is used to monitor the current
between the tap-point and earth. The experimentally produced
data was analyzed using two different signal processing
algorithms and their classification performance compared. The
signals produced by four different artificial PD sources (surface
discharge in air, corona discharge in air, floating discharge in oil
and internal discharge in oil) have been processed, then classified
using two machine learning techniques, namely the support
vector machine (SVM) and probabilistic neural network (PNN).
The feature extraction algorithms involve performing wavelet
packet analysis on the PD signals recorded over a single power
cycle. The dimensionality of the data has been reduced by finding
the first four moments of the probability density function (Mean,
Standard deviation, Skew and Kurtosis) of the wavelet packet
coefficients to produce a suitable feature vector. Initial results
indicate that very high identification rates are possible with the
SVM able to classify PD signals with a slightly higher accuracy
than a PNN.
Keywords: Partial Discharge; Support vector machines;
Probabilistic neural network; Wavelet analysis; Probability density
function;
I. INTRODUCTION
The term "Partial discharge" (PD) is defined by IEC 60270
as, 'a localized electrical discharge that only partially bridges
the insulation between conductors and may or may not occur
adjacent to a conductor' [1]. Modern insulation systems can
consist of combinations of solid, liquid or gaseous material.
This leads to a vast range of mechanisms, described as PD that
each have their own characteristics and varied effects on the
quality of insulation used in modern power systems. It is
widely recognized that the analysis of PD signals can be used
to monitor the health of dielectric materials. The ability to
accurately detect and classify PD sources is a fundamental
stage in the development of an expert insulation condition
monitoring system [2]. It is believed that the development of
signal analysis techniques that are able to accurately classify
D. Evagorou, A. Kyprianou and G. E. Georghiou
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Cyprus
Nicosia, Cyprus
different PD sources is one of the first steps towards producing
a universal PD detection system.
Machine learning is the study of computer algorithms that
improve their performance automatically through experience.
Successful applications include data mining programs that
discover general rules from large databases and autonomous
vehicles that learn how to drive on public roads. With the
increasing interest in intelligent classification systems, it was
decided to investigate whether machine learning techniques,
coupled with modern signal analysis tools, could be used to
accurately identify different PD sources.
II. SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE OPERATION
Support Vector machines (SVM) were initially developed
by V. N. Vapnik in 1995 as an application of statistical
learning theory. They involve the construction of a decision
function within a set of labeled training data. The functions
that are produced can be used to solve either classification or
regression problems. SVM operation can be explained as an
extension of the optimum hyperplane problem displayed in
Fig. 1. A hyperplane is formed between two linearly separable
data classes, with the optimal solution providing the largest
separating margin, "m" between the hyperplane and data
points. The SVM iteratively optimizes the hyperplane function
with each "training" data point and the points closest to the
margin are defined as the, "support vectors". As it is possible
to produce the hyperplane from the support vectors, the
remaining data is deemed surplus to requirement and is
discarded (reducing memory demands). After a model has
been created for a training data-set, parameter optimization is
completed then it can be used as a decision boundary to
classify data of unknown class.
The classification performance of the technique described
above is limited when dealing with data sets that aren't linearly
separable. The ability of Kernel functions to map input vectors
into higher dimensional space, coupled with Cover's theorem
that states: pattern classification is easier to achieve in higher
dimensional space, produces an effective solution to this
problem [3]. Previous published results have highlighted the
Radial basis function (RBF) kernel as a suitable choice for
kernel selection due to its ability to provide non-linear
mapping, added to the fact that it has a number of optimization
parameters [3].
 Figure 1. Optimum hyperplane diagram
Figure 2: Symlet 8 Mother Wavelet
III. EXPERIMENTATION language, each with varying properties. The eighth order of
An overview of the experimental method that is used to the Symlet wavelet family is used as the basis function for
generate the data sets used in this paper is included below; a analysis in this report is shown in Fig. 2.
more detailed explanation is available in [4]. In order to
artificially produce signals that closely resemble those Wavelet packet transforms are a form of multi-scale
produced by on-line equipment in the field an electrical differential operator. The outcome of wavelet analysis is to
coupling technique was used. To achieve this, each discharge decompose a signal from the time domain to the time-scale
source was used to inject their unique PD pulses into a 60 kV domain. This is achieved by expressing the original signal as a
bushing (model 60HC755). A high frequency current set of shifted and scaled versions of a single basis function
transformer (HFCT) was used as a sensor to monitor the ψ(t) (Mother Wavelet). The original time domain signal is fed
current passing between the bushing tap point and earth as
through a series of complementary high pass filters and down-
shown in Fig. 2. The signal from the IPEF HFCT model CAE
sampled by a factor of two to generate higher frequency
140/100 was recorded, analyzed and displayed using a
Tektronix DPO71254 digital oscilloscope, with a bandwidth of coefficients (a representation of the detail of the original
12.5 GHz, a sample rate of 50GS/s and a 400 MSample signal). The original signal is then passed through low pass
memory. filters and down-sampled by two to generate lower frequency
coefficients (a representation of the approximation of the
A Robinson conventional PD detector was used for original signal). The newly generated wavelet coefficients
calibration and to quantify the apparent charge level. This represent decomposition level 2 (decomposition level 1 is the
allowed for the PD signal amplitude (mV) to be related to a original signal), the detail and approximation coefficients of
discharge quantity (pC). This enabled the severity of each PD level 2 are themselves analyzed to produce the next
event to be quantified; an important aspect when linking the decomposition level and the proccess continues for a user-
effects of PD to electrical ageing [5]. Following calibration, the
defined number of stages.
required PD source was connected to the arrangement, the
inception voltage found and PD signals recorded at a range of
voltages above the inception voltage. The acquired data
consists of 500 consecutive cycles at a sampling rate of 500
KS/s for each PD source and voltage. The PD data was
synchronized to the 50 Hz power cycle to allow for phase
resolved analysis, each individual cycle consists of
approximately 10000 points (due to fluctuations in the power
frequency). The time domain signal that was recorded over
each power cycle were used as inputs for both of the
classification algorithms. Table I documents the data-sets
provided by this experiment for classification.
IV. WAVELET PACKET TRANSFORM
A wavelet can be thought of as a small, irregular, asymmetric
wave that has a short duration and a zero mean value. It
oscillates quickly either side of the central point and then
decays as shown in Fig. 2. The use of wavelet analysis has
proven to be more effective at analyzing inherently “spiky”
signals such as PD. A range of wavelet families are available Figure 3: Wavelet packet decomposition coefficients, a=Original signal,
within the MATLAB programming b=Approximation coefficients, c=Detailed coefficients.
Wavelet packet analysis produces a binary tree data structure,
with each node representing a set of coefficients that are
derived from the original signal. Each layer of the tree
represents a decomposition level for the analysis. The
classification algorithms in this paper use different sections of
the binary tree to complete their analysis. The team using
probabilistic neural networks (PNN) extract information from
the entire decomposition level to use for classification. In
contrast to that, the classification technique that utilizes SVM
extracts information from one node of three decomposition
levels.
V. FEATURE EXTRACTION
Effective feature extraction is an integral component for
the development of an intelligent classification algorithm. It
involves capturing the most relevant and unique information
from the experimentally produced data-sets. Literature
highlights a range of methods used to extract characteristics
from PD signals: phase based parameters, pulse sequence
analysis, frequency spectrum and statistical operators [6-9]. As
two different machine learning techniques are utilized in this
paper, the methods used to manipulate the experimental data
into a suitable form for each method differ slightly. The initial
stage of processing is common for both algorithms and is
applied on the same data-set.
 
Figure 4. Schematic diagram of experiment
Table I. Breakdown of Partial Discharge data
Experimental data properties
PD type Voltage level (kV)
Floating 23.4, 25.5
Corona 7, 8, 9, 10
Internal 21, 24.5
Surface 6, 9
a. The 7 and 9 kV Corona data was not available for the team from the University of Southampton
A. Common feature extraction method
Wavelet packet transforms are being increasingly used to
analyze and de-noise PD signals due to their flexibility and the
characteristics of its user-defined basis function: the wavelet.
When comparing wavelets to a sine wave (the basis of Fourier
transform), the wavelet was seen to be more effective at
analyzing inherently "spiky" signals such as PD [10]. Both
feature extraction methods described in this paper share the
same initial processing step; Wavelet packet analysis was
performed on the formatted experimental data from each power
cycle to produce a set of wavelet coefficients. During this
process, the data is transformed from the time domain to time-
scale domain. This has the effect of reducing the
dimensionality of the data and separating its high and low
frequency components. The "Symlet" family of order eight was
selected to produce nine decomposition levels when
transforming the original data as these have previously been
used to analyze PD signals [11].
B. Support Vector Machine algorithm
PD events appear as pulses with a fast rise time and a short
duration [12]. For this reason the wavelet decomposition
containing the low frequency transformation was deemed to
contain irrelevant information and was discarded. The detail
wavelet coefficients of decomposition levels 3, 6 and 9 were
extracted from the data and arranged to form a single vector of
756 dimensions. The data-set documented in Table I were input
to the feature extraction method and the feature vector of each
cycle were ordered into a matrix. These vectors were then
scaled between -1 and 1, to reduce the effect of large numerical
values dominating the classification process.
C. SVM and principal component analysis
The general operation of a kernel is to map multi-class data
into higher dimensional space, where the data clusters are
hopefully linearly separable. Once in this new space, the SVM
creates a separating hyperplane model that is later used to
classify test data. If the feature extraction method can be
designed to maximize the linear separation of the data sets
before they are input to the kernel, it is believed to be beneficial
for classification accuracy. Principal component analysis
(PCA) is a tool within MATLAB for visualizing multi-
dimensional data. The function generates a set of orthogonal
variables which are linear combinations of the original
variables [13]. PCA produces a matrix of the same dimensions
of the original matrix but the first few principal components
contain 80% of the variance of the original data. Fig. 3
represents the first two principal components of the post-
processed data used to train the SVM by the team from the
University of Southampton. The plot shows a degree of
clustering for all PD types (meaning the feature extraction
method is highlighting common characteristics of the PD
Total no. of Cycles signals) and that the signals produced by the Internal source are
1000 linearly separable from the other sources. The points related to
the corona data are mostly separable and the data from the
2000
remaining sources are fairly overlain (although some separation
1000 is noticed when performing PCA in three-dimensions). This
could lead to poor classification results between surface and
1000
floating PD signals.
 Principal Component Scatter Plot
0.06
0.05
0.04
Second Principal Component
0.03
0.02
0.01
0 Corona
-0.01
-0.02
-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 0 0.02
First Principal Component
Figure 5. Principal Component plot of SVM training data.
D. Support Vector Machine training and optimization
To produce the most rigorous SVM classification model
possible, the largest set of training data should be used; if more
data is used for training, a larger number of support vectors will
be generated resulting in a more effective hyperplane model.
As this classification algorithm is to be compared with the
method that utilized PNN, it was decided to mimic the method
used by the team from the University of Cyprus. 100 cycles of
data were randomly selected from each PD source and used to
train the SVM using the radial basis function (RBF) kernel.
The choice of kernel function is important, as the kernel
function defines the feature space in which the training set will
be classified. A training label vector was generated to allow the
SVM to identify the signals produced from different PD
sources. Cross validation and a grid search were used to find
the optimum values of the regularization (C) and flexibility
parameter (γ) for the SVM and enable the maximum
classification accuracy possible. Cross-validation involves
folding the training data by a user defined number and using
one of these data-sets to test the accuracy of the other training
sets for a range of parameters, it is completed to reduce the
effects of the overfitting problem.
E. SVM testing
The entire data-set (1000 cycles per PD source) was input
to the optimized SVM model along with a testing label vector.
The SVM classified the input matrix using the optimized model
and compared the class each feature vector was assigned to
with its actual class and a classification accuracy percentage
was obtained.
F. Probabilistic Neural Network algorithm
The team from the University of Cyprus used PNN to
classify the experimental data. One of the limitations of PNN is
when analyzing data that is of a high dimensionality, the
complexity of the PNN itself is increased and computational
time starts to become a factor. To solve this problem, the team
developed a data mining algorithm that involved finding the
first four moments of the probability density function of the
wavelet decomposition levels. Where η is the mean, σ is the
standard deviation, γ is the skew and κ is the kurtosis of a
distribution as defined by (1-4). The values that were produced
mathematically described the distribution of the wavelet
coefficients; each of the nine decomposition levels has four
descriptors, leading to a feature vector of 36 dimensions.
(1)
(2)
Floating
(3)
Surface
(4)
Internal
The use of statistical moments reduced the dimensionality
of the data from 900 to 36 (a reduction factor of 25).
0.04 0.06
G. Probabilistic Neural Network training equivalent
Reference [14] explains the operation of PNN and its
implementation for a similar application. The general operation
of the PNN is to learn the pattern statistics of a set of
supervised training data. This is achieved by the use of
Gaussian kernel summation to estimate the conditional
probability density function and selection of the class
displaying the minimal expected risk. If a large enough set of
training data is supplied, an accurate decision boundary is
constructed and test data can be classified. The PNN was
trained with the first 200 cycles of Corona data and 100 cycles
for the remaining Floating, Internal and Surface PD types. All
of the experimentally produced data was then input to the PNN
and a classification accuracy was found.
VI. RESULTS
An extensive data-set of experimentally produced PD
signals produced from a range of sources and voltage levels
was classified using two machine learning techniques. Two
different feature extraction methods were designed (to enhance
the performance of each respective machine learning method in
terms of computational efficiency and classification accuracy)
and implemented to capture the unique characteristics inherent
to each PD source. Table II shows the classification accuracies
produced by each method.
Table II. Classification accuracy results
Classification accuracy (%)
PD type
PNN method SVM method
Floating 91.9 99.63
Corona 97.49 99.38
Internal 100 100
Surface 99.8 97.62
Total 97.30 99.17
These results highlight the high accuracy of the applied
methods at classifying individual PD types. The results show
that with the same ration of training to testing data, the SVM
outperforms the PNN in two of the four PD sources as well as
the overall classification value. Both methods perfectly
identified all of the PD signals produced by the Internal source,
in agreement with the analysis of Fig. 3. Both methods
effectively implemented the use of Wavelet Packet Transforms
to analyze the time domain data. Future research will
investigate whether these algorithms return such impressive
accuracy levels if a lower signal to noise ratio is present (as
found in items of plant in the field). The possibility of
introducing noise signals as an independent class of signal,
could also be investigated. The data acquisition method in the
experimental setup used to measure the artificial PD signals
was aimed at obtaining useful phase resolved data. If the
sampling rate was increased to fully complement the use of the
HFCT, more of the higher frequency characteristics of the PD
pulses could be captured and possibly used for PD source
classification. If the methods were supplied with larger training
data-sets, higher classification accuracies could be achieved.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
The performance of two PD source classification
algorithms has been investigated. Both methods produced high
classification results with the SVM algorithm being slightly
more accurate than the method implementing PNN. A
drawback for the use of PNN method is its limitation in
processing data of high dimensionality (hence the use of a
complex feature extraction method). As the complexity of the
SVM model is related to the number of support vectors
involved and not the dimensionality of the data, it doesn't
experience the same problem.
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