IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 23, No.

5; October 2016 2883

Autocorrelation aided Rough Set Based Contamination

Level Prediction of High Voltage Insulator at Different
Environmental Condition
A. Banik, S. Dalai and B. Chatterjee
Department of Electrical Engineering
Jadavpur University
Kolkata, West Bengal, India, 700032

ABSTRACT
This paper presents a Rough Set Theory (RST) based approach for predicting the
surface contamination level of porcelain type insulators at different environmental
condition. The sample insulators have been contaminated by Solid layer Method (SLM)
according to IEC60507. Leakage current of the insulators are recorded at different
contamination level and at different humidity conditions. In the proposed method,
autocorrelation technique is used for feature selection from leakage current because it
is well suited for non-stationary leakage current signals and cancels out the effect of
noise present in the signal. Rough Set Theory is used for classification of extracted
features as it suits well with the correlation technique. Result shows that the proposed
method is able to detect the contamination level with acceptable range of accuracy.

Index Terms - Leakage current, contamination, rough set theory (RST),

autocorrelation technique, solid layer method (SLM).

1 INTRODUCTION characteristics, most of the researchers have found that the

IN power system, for maintaining the reliability, outdoor
insulator plays an important role. Presently, porcelain
insulators are widely used for power utilities (e.g. considering
Indian subcontinent). As most of the insulators are of outdoor
type, they easily get contaminated by different pollutants (Salt,
different chemicals, dust, sand etc.). The pollutants increase
the surface leakage current which in turn, reduces the flashover
voltage. Hence, it is essential to develop a suitable system that
can precisely monitor the contamination level on insulator
surface.
It has been reported by many researchers how the
operations of high voltage insulators get affected by different
pollutants [1-16]. For condition assessment of surface
conductivity of the insulators, equivalent salt deposit density
(ESDD), leakage current, nonsoluble salt deposit density
(NSDD), humidity, temperature, etc. are considered as
important parameters [3, 6, 7, 8]. Among all of them it has
been found that the leakage current contains the most
important information to predict the level of contamination on
the insulator surface. Recently wavelet transform [5, 7],
spectral analysis [10], Fourier series [8], Artificial Neural
Network [8-9,13], phase angle approach [7] etc. have been
employed to evaluate the characteristics of leakage current.
For flashover voltage prediction [11] and analysis of other
Manuscript  received  on  8  July  2015,  in  final  form  25  April  2016,  insulator surface, but due to different environmental condition,
accepted 21 June 2016.  the leakage current information is different. By considering the
higher order harmonic contents (3rd, 5th ,7th etc.) provide
better results as compared to the peak values of the leakage
current [1, 4, 8-9, 11-13]. For all the assessments, many of the
researchers have adopted artificial pollution test for
experimental purpose in conditions of controlled humidity and
temperature [3, 9, 10]. But changing the humidity level has a
direct effect on the odd harmonic components [11, 17-18].
During flashover, voltage calculation or flashover voltage
prediction, the humidity correction factor provides useful
solution, but it is not possible to use this correction factor for
odd harmonics calculation. So in order to predict the
contamination level of a contaminated insulator by using
leakage current, the effect of humidity on leakage current
information cannot be ignored. For example, if an insulator is
working in outdoor, it will countenance different humidity
condition at different season in a year. Leakage current
monitoring in controlled environment (with fixed humidity
level) cannot reveal the actual information (e.g. odd harmonic
components) under online conditions, where humidity and
other environmental conditions will vary over a wide range.
For example, in Indian subcontinent, the humidity change can
be approximated to 30%-85% in every season in a calendar
year (although it cannot be generalized for the entire sub-
continent). So it is difficult to predict the real contamination by
monitoring leakage current in controlled humidity condition.
In other words, the amount of contaminants is same on the

DOI: 10.1109/TDEI.2016.005484

Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 2884 A. Banik et al.: Autocorrelation aided Rough Set Based Contamination Level Prediction of High Voltage Insulator
above effects, it is important to develop a reliable system with
less computational complexity to indentify the actual
contamination irrespective of environmental influence.
In this paper, test procedures of Solid Layer Method
(SLM) that are described in IEC 60507 [20] has been followed
for artificial pollution test. This method is wildly used for
artificial pollution test on different types of insulators [14-16].
For testing purpose 11 kV disc type porcelain insulators has
been used. In this method salt (NaCl or KCl) is used as
soluble component and kaolin is used as non soluble
component. It has been found the effect of these two salts in
artificial pollution test is different [12-13]. In this paper, the
effect of both salts during artificial pollution test has been
presented. After contamination, the leakage current has been
recorded at different ambient condition for the composition of
contamination layer.
In the present work, for analysis of the experimental
results, auto-correlation technique [21] is employed to extract
Figure 1. Schemetic of experimental setup.
2 EXPERIMENTAL TESTS
2.1 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
An experimental setup is developed according to IEC 60507
[20]. The schematic diagram of experimental setup along with
data acquisition system is shown in Figure 1. A test voltage is
applied across the sample insulator through a series
resistance. Here C1 and C2 are for the potential divider.
A single phase 50 Hz testing transformer having a rating
of 150 KVA, 500 V/250 kV is used for supplying the power
to the conductor as shown in Figure 1. The output voltage of
the transformer was applied to insulator through a series
connected protective resistor of 180 kΩ. Waveforms related
to surface leakage current were collected from terminals
across a shunt resistance of 10 kΩ. Waveforms have been
captured and stored in a CRO for future analysis.
2.2 DESCRIPTION OF INSULATOR SAMPLES
11 kV porcelain disc insulators have been used as test
samples. Dimension of the insulator have been tabulated in
Table 1 and the photograph of the sample is shown in
Figure 2.
Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
features from the leakage current waveforms. It is a
conventional method to judge the similarity of two wave
forms. It has been applied here for its less computational
burden, which is essential for automatic pollution detection
system. Rough Set Theory (RST) based classifier is used for
classifying the extract features [22]. RST is suitable to use
when acquired data contains superfluous information. With the
help of RST method, it is possible to reduce a number of
features keeping all the important information intact [22-25].
In this paper, the proposed method used for the analysis of
the obtained results is utilized to minimize the computational
burden for contamination level prediction of high voltage
insulator under different environmental conditions. Result
shows that auto-correlation based featured extraction technique
along with RST classifier can determine different
contamination level with reasonable degree of accuracy.
Table 1. Insulator parameters used for experiment.
Parameter Value
Creepage Distance 330mm
Maximum Diameter 255 mm
Axial Height 145mm
Pin diameter 20mm
Figure 2. Cross sectional view and actual photograph of disc insulator.
2.3 CONTAMINATION ON INSULATOR
For artificial contamination, Solid Layer Method (SLM) has
been chosen to contaminate the insulator surface [20].It is
possible to produce an approximately uniform contamination
layer by this method. In this particular test, NaCl and KCl are
used as two different conductive components along with kaolin.
It has been well established that NaCl and KCl has different
 IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 23, No. 5; October 2016 2885

effect in solid layer method [12-13]. Thus, even for equal amount
of KCl and NaCl solution, ESDD and conductivity would be
different. This difference is caused due to the hydro phobicity of
the insulator surface. The insulator should be pre-contaminated at
the beginning. This pre-contamination is done by spraying
droplets of distilled water on the surface and then, kaolin powder
is poured over the surface of the insulator. In the next step, the
artificial pollution layer is prepared according to IEC 60507 by
Figure 5. Scheme of classification of the contaminaton level.
mixing kaolin and NaCl. Initially, the weight of the kaolin and
NaCI are measured by the weight gauge apparatus. This mixture 3 EXTRACTION OF FEATURE
is coated on the insulator surface and allowed to dry for 24 hours. BY AUTO- CORRELATION
The same procedure has been followed for artificial
contamination using KCl and Kaolin. Figure 3 shows such an The aim of the present work is to develop a scheme which is
artificially contaminated insulator. able to predict contamination level of outdoor high voltage
insulators by monitoring their leakage current. The recorded
leakage current data for different contamination level are
processed by feature extraction tool. Auto correlation based
feature extraction technique is used to extract the features from
the recorded data. Correlation based method is used for feature
extraction due to its low computational burden. In autocorrelation
technique, similarity of two identical waveforms is measured as a
function of time lag. It has been found that to find out the
inherent features of a signal auto correlation is very effective
Figure 3. Artificialy contaminated disc insulators.
[21]. A typical waveform of a leakage current signal is shown in
2.4 ESDD MEASUREMENT Figure 6. The corresponding auto correlogram is shown in Figure
In order to measure the leakage current through the 7. Auto-correlation of leakage current signal X(n) with itself is
artificially contaminated high voltage porcelain insulator, the given by equation (2).
insulator has been tested at different pollution levels as well
as different humidity levels. Relative humidity is kept in three
ranges viz. light (30-50)%, moderate (50-80)% and heavy
(over 80% ). For each contamination level, 10 set of leakage
current data is recorded at different ranges of humidity level Here m represents the time shift parameter
for the purpose of analysis. After measuring the leakage
and R XX represents auto-correlation sequence. If N is the total
current, ESDD and electrical conductance are measured
according to IEC 60815. ESDD is used to determine the number of sample, then number of coefficients of the resultant
severity of contamination on insulator surface which is auto correlation is (2N-1).The events studied in this paper are
standardized in terms of salt weight per unit area (mg/cm2). given in Table 3. Different types of feature (F1-F12) have been
ESDD is measured by using the equation (1). extracted from each auto-correlogram of leakage current
waveform. A brief description of each feature and their
ESDD  SV / A (1) corresponding physical significance is listed in Table 4.
where S is salinity (gm/ml), V is the volume of the solution
(cm3) and A is the area (cm2) of the insulator surface.
Measured value of the ESDD, electrical conductance and
other parameter is tabulated in Table 2.
A typical pattern of leakage current waveform for both
NaCl and KCl solution is given in Figure 4. The scheme of
predicting the contamination level from the acquired leakage
current waveform is shown in Figure 5. Figure 6. A typical waveform of leakage current.

Figure 4. Leakage current waveshape of an Average contaminated Insulator Figure 7. Auto correlogram of leakage current of waveform as shown in
at 15 kV applied voltage. Figure 6.

Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 2886 A. Banik et al.: Autocorrelation aided Rough Set Based Contamination Level Prediction of High Voltage Insulator
Table 2. ESSD and Elecrical Conductance at 20 ˚C for different pollution layer.
Sl.no NaCl KCl Keolin Water ESDD Electrical Pollution type
(gm) (gm) (gm) (ml) (mg/cm2) Conductance [19]
(S/cm)
1 10 - 5 25 0.0690 0.0289 Average
2 - 10 5 25 0.0899 0.0357 Average
3 15 - 7 25 0.1180 0.0497 Average
4 - 15 7 25 0.1420 0.0595 Heavy
5 20 - 9 25 0.1801 0.0685 Heavy
6 - 20 9 25 0.2169 0.0789 Heavy
7 25 - 11 25 0.2450 0.0878 Very Heavy
8 - 25 11 25 0.2711 0.0989 Very Heavy
9 30 - 13 25 0.3008 0.1102 Very Heavy

contamination is known from a set of decision attributes or the

Table 3. Notaions used for different pollution level.
Events Descriptions optimized condition attributes. Thus, a unique set of condition
attribute decides the decision attribute. This decision table is
E1 ESDD level 0.0690
then further discretized using the concept of approximations in
E2 ESDD level 0.0899
RST.
E3 ESDD level 0.1180
The information obtained from the discretized decision table
E4 ESDD level 0.1420
is undistorted and adequate for contamination classification.
E5 ESDD level 0.1801
RST yields Decision Table mathematically using an
E6 ESDD level 0.2169
E7 ESDD level 0.2450
information function S = (U, Q, V, f) where ‘U’ denotes the
E8 ESDD level 0.2711 finite set of objects, ‘Q’ denotes set of attributes, V  Vq ;
E9 ESDD level 0.3008 qQ
Vqis the domain of attribute ‘q’. The final decision function is
Normalized value of extracted features are given in Table5. represented by f : U × Q  V. The formulation of the present
Depending on the problem, these features are extremely problem is based on Maximal Discernible (MD) heuristics.
flexible to be chosen. For example, these features are Different objects in RST are known as indiscernible, if all of
succesfully used for indentifing PQ disturbance [24] where them are characterized by the same information for definite
the signal has substantial amount of harmonics and also in attributes. Let P  Q and x a , x b  U . Then in the set of
locating partial discharges (PD) in high voltage equipment
[23]. attributes xa and xb are indiscernible by the set of attributes P in
S, if and only if f (xa, q) = f (xb, q), ‫׊‬q ∈ P. A set of all
4 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ROUGH SET indiscernible objects with respect to specific attributes is called
THEORY AND DECISION RULE the elementary set. An equivalence relation on U for P  Q is
GENERATION TECHNIQUE called P-indiscernibility relation and it is denoted as Ip. Table 6
shows the reduced discretized table which is considered for
rule generation.
Rough set theory (RST) was first introduced by Pawlak In Table 6,the attributes F5 yields sets like,
[22] for classification of data table. To minimize the {1,2,..,12,...61,62,…,81,82}{…,11,…,21,22,…,41,42,…51,52
computational burden, RST has been useful to divide the } and {…,31,32,…,71,72,…}etc., as all the elements of each
obtained features into dispensable and indispensable data. RST of the individual sets have identical attribute value. For
is apposite for getting rid of the superfluous information instance, the object belonging to the set
without losing the essential information of the correlation {1,2…,12,….,61,62,…,81,82} have attribute value equal to 1
sequence. Different applications of the RST are addressed in and hence are indiscernible with respect to the attribute F5.
[23-25]. In the present problem, features extracted from the
auto-correlation technique are categorized using RST based
approach for predicting contamination level. The level of
Table 4. Description of features extracted from auto-correlation.
Features Known as Description
F1 Maxm Value of the auto-correlation sequence Rmax
F2 Index of the maximum value -
F3 Equivalent width [  n   N nR n ]
N

R max
F4 Centroid [
N
n N
n .R n ]


N
n N
Rn

Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 23, No. 5; October 2016 2887

F5 Absolute centroid [
N
n N
| n . R n |]

N
n N
Rn
F6 Root mean square width 
N
n 2 . Rn
n N


N
n N
Rn
F7 Mean value N
Rn

n N ( 2 N  1)
F8 Standard deviation

N
n  N
(R n  F7 )2
( 2 N  1)
F9 Skewness 
N
nN
( R n  F7 )3
2 N ( F8 ) 3
F10 Kurtosis of correlation coefficient 
N
( R n  F7 )4
n  N

2 N ( F8 )4
Varriation of signal (X)
F11

N 1
n 0
( X  X )2
2N
F12 Kurtosis of signal respectively 
N 1
( X  X )4
n   N
2N ( X s )4

Table 5. Decision Table contains normalized values of features for rule generation.
Condition Attributes Decision
Object Attributes
F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11 F12

1 0.397 0.392 0 0.486 0.443 0.008 0.397 0.219 0.976 0.404 0.170 0.933 E1

2 0.397 0.372 0.012 0.486 0.443 0.018 0.485 0.219 0.976 0.424 0.172 0.933 E1
-
11 0.514 0.624 0.991 0.793 1 0.025 0.515 0.238 0.984 0.523 0.112 0.926 E2
12 0.514 0.624 0.991 0.793 0.998 0.035 0.625 0.238 0.984 0.329 0.231 0.729 E2
-
21 0.949 0.580 0.999 0.933 0.859 0.031 0.973 0.058 0.956 0.965 0.676 0.918 E3
22 0.534 0.780 0.815 0.858 0.958 0.071 0.848 0.021 0.815 0.723 0.524 0.728 E3
-
31 0.665 0.429 0.654 0.985 0.221 0.091 0.645 1.00 0.988 0.661 0.219 0.928 E4
32 0.712 0.389 0.695 0.895 0.189 0.085 0.543 1.00 0.781 0.661 0.219 0.918 E4
-
41 0.219 0.074 0.546 0.992 0.726 0.107 0.217 0.229 0.980 0.521 0.946 0.921 E5
42 0.224 0.121 0.621 0.992 0.695 0.078 0.345 0.187 0.875 0.522 0.485 0.854 E5
-
51 0.224 0.999 0.805 0.991 0.732 0.103 0.222 0.224 0.980 0.726 0.985 0.942 E6
52 0.312 0.853 0.789 0.991 0.789 0.103 0.232 0.234 0.875 0.695 0.931 0.931 E6
-
61 1 0.094 0.594 1 0.642 1 1 0.317 0.971 0.999 0.832 0.941 E7
62 1 0.085 0.584 0.983 0.592 1 1 0.305 0.884 0.895 0.921 0.934 E7
-
71 0.095 0.535 0.978 0 0 0.001 0.093 0.405 1 0.096 0 1 E8
72 0.127 0.612 0.872 0.001 0.012 0.002 0.095 0.459 1 0.089 0.004 0.999 E8
-
81 0.448 0.489 0.789 0.481 0.372 0.12 0.221 0.543 1 0.235 0.028 0.895 E9
82 0.438 0.512 0.789 0.485 0.421 0.022 0.221 0.432 1 0.421 0.028 0.935 E9
-
90 0.468 0.593 0.789 0.489 0.475 0.14 0.281 0.462 1 0.431 0.031 0.995 E9

Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 2888 A. Banik et al.: Autocorrelation aided Rough Set Based Contamination Level Prediction of High Voltage Insulator
Table 6. Reduced discretized Decision Table.
dependent. Let P ⊆Q and T⊆Q be considered to have an
Object Condition attributes Decision
F1 F2 F4 F5 F11 attribute equivalence relation in U. The P-positive region of Tis
1 0 0 0 1 0 E1 defined as
2
-
0 0 0 1 1 E1 POSP (T ) = PZ 
Z IT
(3)
11 1 1 0 2 0 E2
12 1 1 0 1 0 E2 Equation (3) represents the set of objects which can be
- correctly classifiedinto T -elementary set generated by ITusing
21 1 1 1 2 1 E3
theinformation available from Ip. If q ∈P and POSP(T )=POS(P
22 1 1 1 2 1 E3
- −{q}) (T ) then qis T -dispensable in P, else qis T -indispensable
31 1 0 1 0 0 E4
32 1 0 1 0 0 E4 in P. If the set of attributes H (H ‫ ك‬P) is a T -independent in P
- and POSH (T ) = POSP (T), then H is called T -reduct of P. For
41 0 0 1 2 1 E5 example, P={F1,F5,F11} & T={ contamination level } or
42 0 0 1 2 0 E5 decision attributes, then Ip={1},{2},{11},{12},{31}{32};
- IT={1,2},{21,22},{31,32}. Also POSp(T) ={1,2,21,31,32}. If
51 0 1 1 2 1 E6
F1 is removed from P then POS(P-F1)(T)= {1,2,21,31,32}=POSp
52 0 1 1 2 1 E6
- (T) . So F1 is T-dispensable in P. Again if F5 is removed then
61 1 0 1 1 1 E7 POS(P-F5) (T)={1,2,21,31}  POSp(T), so F5 is T-indispensable
62 1 0 1 1 1 E7 in P. now if F11 removed then POS(p-
- F11)(T)={1,21,31,32}  POSp(T) and F11is also T-indispensable
71 0 1 0 0 0 E8 in P. Thus Table 7 can be simplified as shown in Table 8. Now
72 0 1 0 0 1 E8
the decision table obtained from Table 8 is tabulated in Table
-
81 1 1 0 1 0 E9
9. In this table ‘  ’and ‘  ’ are logical ‘AND’ and ‘OR’
82 0 1 0 1 0 E9 operator.
-
89 0 1 0 1 0 E9
90 0 1 0 1 0 E9 5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The main aim of this paper is to detect different
Table 7. Truncated decision Table. contamination level of porcelain insulator under different
Object Condition Attributes Decision humidity level. Total 144 leakage current waveform for
Attributes different contamination levels are recorded for the analysis of
F1 F5 F11
contamination level prediction. Among them 90 waveforms
1 0 1 0 E1 (60%) are used for training purpose and 54 waveforms
2 0 1 1 E1 (40%)are used for testing purpose. For training phase,
extracted features have been already tabulated in Table 5.
21 1 2 1 E3
Table 5 has 90 rows and 12 columns excluding the columns
22 1 2 1 E3 of object index. This table is used for rule generation. The
31 1 0 0 E4 following steps are used for rule generation.
32 0 0 1 E4
Table 8. Reduced form of Table 7.
Object Condition Attributes Decision
Now for any rough set R, PR and PR are called P- F1 F5 F11 Attributes
1 - 1 0 E1
lower and P- upper approximation of R and defined as
2 - 1 1 E1
PR  {x  R | I p (x)  R} and
21 - 2 1 E3
P R  { x  R | I p ( x )  R   } respectively. This 22 - 2 1 E3
31 - 0 0 E4
indiscernibility relation can make a decision table simpleby 32 - 0 1 E4
using the concept of reductand core. Reduct refers to the
minimal set of attributes which are capable of classifying the
faults while core is the set of attributes occurring in every Table 9. Decision Base obtained from Table 8.
reduct.The decision rules can be framed using the reductand Rule Rule statement
no. IF THEN
core. Let P be a given set of attribute such that P ⊆Q, then an 1 (F5=1  F11=0)  E1
attribute q∈P is dispensable in the given set P if and only if, (F5=1  F11=1)
2 (F5=2  F11=1) E3
Ip= I(p−{q}); else, qis indispensable. If every element in P is 3 (F5=0  F11=0)  E4
indispensable then Pis said to be independent otherwise (F5=0  F11=1)

Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 23, No. 5; October 2016 2889
Table 10. Simplified form of the decision Table.
Serial Condition Attributes Decision Similar
No. Attributes Cases
F1 F2 F4 F5 F11

1 0 0 0 1 0 E1 4
2 0 1 0 1 0 E1 1
3 0 0 1 1 0 E1 1
4 1 1 0 2 0 E2 3
5 1 0 0 1 0 E2 2
6 1 0 0 2 0 E2 1
7 1 1 1 2 1 E3 3
8 0 1 1 2 1 E3 1
9 0 1 0 2 1 E3 1
10 1 1 0 2 1 E3 1 Figure 8. Flow-Chart of proposed algorithm
11 1 0 1 0 0 E4 5 Table 11. Modified form of complete decision Table.
12 1 1 1 0 0 E4 1 Serial Condition Attributes Decision
13 0 0 1 2 1 E5 1 No. F1 F2 F4 F5 F11 attributes
1 0 - - 1 0 E1
14 0 0 1 2 0 E5 4
2 1 - 0 - 0 E2
15 0 0 0 2 0 E5 1
16 0 1 1 2 1 E6 1 3 - 1 - 2 1 E3
17 0 1 1 2 0 E6 1 4 1 - 1 0 0 E4
18 0 0 1 1 1 E6 3 5 0 0 - 2 - E5
19 0 1 1 0 1 E6 1 6 0 - 1 - - E6
20 1 0 1 1 1 E7 2
7 0 - 1 1 E7
21 1 0 0 1 1 E7 3
8 0 1 0 - 0 E8
22 0 0 0 1 1 E7 1
23 0 1 0 0 0 E8 1 9 - 1 0 1 - E9
24 0 1 0 1 0 E8 5
25 1 1 0 1 0 E9 5
26 0 1 0 1 1 E9 1 Table 12. Decision Rules based on Table 11.
Decision Statement
Step1- discretized data table and keep indispensable Rule no. IF THEN
attributes 1 F1=0  F5=1  F11=0 E1
Table 10 represents the discretized data table. The data 2 F1=1  F4=0  F11=0 E2
table is discretized according to RST methodology as
3 F2=1  F5=2  F11=1 E3
presented in previous section. It was evident from the table
4 F1=1  F4=1  F5=0  F11=0 E4
that features F1, F2, F4, F5and F11are indispensable and those
features contains the most significant information of 5 F1=0  F2=0  F5=2 E5
contamination level. 6 F1=0  F4=1 E6
Step2- rule selection and finding core values 7 F2=0  F5=1  F11=1 E7
Rules 1, 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 21, 24, 25 are selected from 8 F1=0  F2=1  F4=0  F11=0 E8
table 10, because these similarity index are higher compared 9 F2=1  F4=0  F5=1 E9
to other rules of the similar events. By using concept of reduct
and core values, the decision rules are much simpler and these
core values are presented in Table 11. Table 13. Classification Results of the Tested Signal.
Step3-decision rules are generated from the core values Events E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9
Finally, decision rules are obtained from the core values E1 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
as mentioned in Table 11. These decision rules are based on E2 0 5 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
IF-THEN format and are shown in Table 12. To validate E3 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0
these decision rules, 54 leakage current signals, for different E4 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 1 0
contamination levels of signal are used. From these detected
E5 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0
signals, at first, only the indispensable features are extracted E6 0 0 0 0 1 5 0 0 0
using auto- correlation technique. This reduces the
E7 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0
computational burden of the testing phase. These extracted E8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0
features are then classified using decision rules as mentioned E9 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 4
in Table 12. Figure 8 represents the flow chart of the proposed Overall accuracy =90.7%
algorithm.

Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 2890 A. Banik et al.: Autocorrelation aided Rough Set Based Contamination Level Prediction of High Voltage Insulator

The classification result is given in Table 13. For each 6 CONCLUSIONS

event 6 dataset are considered for testing. Here, diagonal
elements represent the classified event and off-diagonal This paper has proposed a new approach to determine the
elements represent the miss-classified events. The overall contamination level of porcelain type disc insulator at
classification accuracy is the ratio of correctly classified event different relative humidity levels. In the proposed method,
divided by total number of events. From the results, it can be autocorrelation technique is used for feature selection from
seen that among 54 data, 49 data are successfully classified by leakage current because it is well suited for non-stationary
this method. Thus, the overall accuracy of the proposed system leakage current signals and cancels out the effect of noise
is 90.7%. This accuracy can be improved by increasing the present in the signal. Rough Set Theory is used as a feature
number of training data sets. On the other hand, to identify one selector as well as classifier in the proposed method. The
ESSD level at ten different relative humidity conditions, it is overall classification accuracy obtained in this method is
shown in the paper that ten 3/5 or 5/3 ratios has to be defined 90.7%. Result also shows that the proposed method is able to
[8,11]. This involves huge computational burden to detect detect the contamination level with acceptable range of
different contamination level along with different levels of accuracy compared to other feature extraction and classifier
humidity. Since the main objective of the present work is to algorithms.
reduce the computational burden as compared to the methods
reported in [8, 11] the RST based methodology is used in this REFERENCES
paper. It is shown that this methodology is not only able to
[1] H. Ahmad, M.A. Salam, L.Y. Ying and N. Bashir, “Harmonic
reduce the computational burden, but also immune to noises in components of leakage current as diagnostic tool to study the aging of
the data which is an added advantage to be used in the field. insulators”, J. Electrostatics , Vol. 66, pp. 156-164, 2008.
Also, the reduction in computational burden of the proposed [2] C. N. Richards and J. D. Renowden, “Development of a remote insulator
algorithm helps the scheme to be implemented in a general contamination monitoring system”, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol.
purpose microcontroller with limited computational facility, 12, No. 1, pp. 389-397, 1997.
thus making the analyzing system embedded and portable [3] T. Suda, “Frequency characteristics of leakage current waveforms of
anvartificially polluted suspension insulator”, IEEE Trans. Dielectr.
suitable for in-situ applications. Electr. Insul., Vol. 8, pp. 705-709,. 2001.
The proposed method is also tested with different feature [4] A. H. El-Hag, S. Jayaram, and E. A. Cherney, “Fundamental and low
extraction techniques with same classification algorithm. It is frequency harmonic components of leakage current as a diagnostic tool
evident from Table 14 that the auto-correlation based to study aging of RTV and HTV silicone rubber in salt-fog”, IEEE Trans.
technique shows lesser computational burden, because its Dielectr. Electr. Insul., Vol. 10, pp. 128-136, 2003.
[5] T. Suda, “Frequency characteristics of leakage current waveforms of a
relative computational time (RCT) [24] is less compared to
string of suspension insulators”, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 20,
other method and also its classification accuracy is comparable pp. 481-487, 2005.
with other method. [6] S. Kumagai and N. Yoshinmura, “Leakage current Characterization for
Estimation the Conditions of Ceramic and polymeric Insulating
Surfaces”, IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr.Insul., Vol. 11, pp. 681-690,
Table 14. Comparison of Relative Computational Time of Different Feature 2004.
Extraction Methods. [7] S. Chandrasekar, C. Kalaivanan, A. Cavallini and G.C. Montanari,
Feature Extraction RCT (pu) Classification “Investigations on Leakage current and Phase angle Characteristics of
method Accuracy (%) Porcelain and polymaeric Insulator under Contaminated condition.”
Discrete Wavelet 1.31 87. IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., Vol. 16, pp. 573-584, 2009.
Transform (DWT) 0 [8] N.Bashir and H. Ahmad, “Odd Harmonics and Third to Fifth Harmonic
Cross Wavelet 1.34 88. Ratios of Leakage Currrents as Diagnostic Tools to Study the Ageing of
Transform (XWT) 8 Glass Insulators.” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., Vol. 17, pp. 819-
Hillbert Huang 1.65 92. 832, 2010.
Transform 4 [9] A.H. El-Hag, A.N. Jahromi and M.S.Pasand, “Prediction of Leakage
Proposed Method 1.00 90. Current of non –ceramic Insulators in early ageing period.” Electric
(Auto -Correlation ) 7 Power Systems Research Elsevier , Vol. 78 , pp. 1686-1692 , 2008.
[10] B.X. Du and Y. Liu, “Frequency Distribution of leakage current on
Silicon Rubber insulator in Slat –Fog Environments”, IEEE Trans.
Table 15. Classification Results of Different Classifier. Power Delivery, Vol. 24, pp. 14581464, 2009.
[11] H.H. Kordkheili, H. Abravesh, M. Tabasi, M. Arzieh and M.M.
Classifier Classification Accuracy (%)
Abravesh, “Determining the probability of Flashover Occurance in
Neural Network 74.0 Composite Insulators by Using Leakage Current Harmonic
Neural-Fuzzy 79.6 Components”, IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr.Insul., Vol. 17 , pp. 502-512,
Support Vector Machine 85.1 2010.
Rough Set Theory 90.7
[12] A. Banik, S. Dalai and B. Chaterjee, “Studies the Effect of Equivalent
(Proposed)
Salt Deposit Density on Leakage Current and Flashover Voltage of
Artificially Contaminated Disc Insulators.” 1st Int’l. Conf. Power
Dielectrics and Energy management at Nerist, Nerist Arunachal Pradesh,
As far as the classifier is concerned, the proposed method has India, pp-1-5, 2015.
been also tested with different classifiers by keeping a same [13] A. Banik, S. Dalai, R. Ghosh, A.k. Pradhan and B. Chaterjee, “A
Comparative Study on Leakage Current Harmonics of Porcelain Disc
feature extraction method. Different classifier performance is Insulator Contaminated with NaCl and KCl.” Int’l. Conf. Power
given in Table 15. Result shows that the proposed method has Dielectrics and Energy management at Nerist, Nerist Arunachal Pradesh,
better classification accuracy compare to other methods. India, pp. 1-4, 2015.

Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 23, No. 5; October 2016
[14] B. Dong, X. Jiang , J. Hu, L. Shu and C. Sun, “Effect of Artificial
Polluting Method on AC Flashover Voltage of Composite Insulators”,
IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., Vol. 19, pp. 714-722, 2011.
[15] X. Jiang, S. Wang, Z. Zhang, J. Hu and Q. Hu, “Investigation of
flashover voltage and non-uniform pollution correction coefficient of
short samples of composite insulator intended for ±800 kV UHVDC”,
IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr.Insul., Vol. 17 , pp.71-80, 2010.
[16] X. Jiang, J. Yuan, Z. Zhang, Q. Hu and A. Cheng, “Study on AC
pollution flashover performance of composite insulators at high altitude
sites of 2800-4500 m”, IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr.Insul., Vol. 16,
pp.123-132, 2009.
[17] S. Venkataramman and R.S. Gorur, “Flashover voltage prediction of
outdoor insulators subjected to road salt contamination”, IEEE Conf.
Electr. Insul. Dielectr. Phenomena (CEIDP), pp. 293-296, 2005.
[18] J.Y. Li, C.X. Sun and S.A. Sebo, “Humidity and contamination Severity
Impact on Leakage Currents of Porcelain Insulators” IET Gener. Trnasm.
Distrib.Vol.5, pp. 19-28, 2009.
[19] Working Group 33.04, Study Committee 33, "A Critical Comparison of
ArtificialPollution Test Methods for HV Insulators," Electra, No. 64, pp.
117-136, 1979.
[20] Int’l. Electrotechnical Commission, “Artificial pollution tests on high-
voltage insulators to be used on a.c. systems”, Int’l. std. IEC 60507,
1991.
[21] K. Rana, R. Singh and K.S. Sayann, “Auto correlation based intelligent
technique for complex wavwform presentation”, J. Science. Instr. Vol. 4,
pp. 1-10, 2009.
[22] Z. Pawlak, “Rough Set Theory and its application,” J. Telecom. Inf.
Techo. Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 7-10, 2002.
[23] S. Biswas, D. Dey, B. Chatterjee and S. Chakravorti, “An Approach
based on rough set theory for identification of single and multiple partial
discharge source” J. Electrical power and Energy Systems, Vol. 46,
pp.163-174, 2013.
[24] S. Dalai, B. Chatterjee, D. Dey, S. Chakraborty, K. Bhattacharya.
“Rough-Set-Based Feature Selection and Classification for Power
Quality Sensing Device Employing Correlation Techniques.” IEEE
Sensor J., Vol. 13, pp. 562-573, 2013.
Authorized licensed use limited to: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Downloaded on June 23,2021 at 11:26:43 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2891
[25] D. Dey, B. Chatterjee, S. Chakravorti, and S. Munshi, “Rough-granular
approach for impulse fault classification of transformers using
crosswavelet transform,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr.Insul., Vol. 15, pp.
1297–1304, 2008.
Apu Banik received the B.Sc. and M.E, degrees in
engineering from Ahsanullah University of Science
and Technology, Bangladesh and Jadavpur
University, Kolkata, India in 2012 and 2015,
respectively. Currently he is Lecturer in the Electrical
and Electronic Engineering Department of Stamford
University, Bangladesh. His areas of interest are data
acquisition and condition monitoring related to high
voltage engineering
Sovan Dalai received the B.E.E., M.E.E and, and Ph.D.
degrees in engineering from B.E. College (Deemed
Univ.), Howrah and Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
in 2000, 2003 and 2015, respectively. Currently he is an
Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering
Department of Jadavpur University. His areas of interest
are power quality event detection, smart metering,
condition monitoring and signal conditioning in high
voltage systems.
Biswendu Chatterjee received the M.E.E. and the
Ph.D. degrees in engineering from Jadavpur University,
Kolkata, India in 2004 and 2009, respectively. Currently
he is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering
Department of Jadavpur University. His areas of interest
are data acquisition and condition monitoring related to
high voltage systems.