1356
3, JUNE 2022
An Improved Noniterative Parameter-Free Fault
Location Method on Untransposed Transmission
Lines Using Multi-Section Models
Dian Lu , Student Member, IEEE, Yu Liu , Senior Member, IEEE, Shi Chen,
Binglin Wang , Student Member, IEEE, and Dayou Lu , Student Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper proposes an improved noniterative fault
location method on untransposed transmission lines without uti-
lizing line parameters. Two-end three phase voltage and current
phasor measurements before and during the fault are typically
required. First, the parameter-free fault location problem is for-
mulated through multi-section transmission line models, and the
necessary condition of noniterative solutions is carefully investi-
gated to determine the maximum possible section number of the
multi-section line model. Afterwards, with the determined section
number, the analytical solution of the fault location is derived with
full utilization of the inherent characteristics of the line parameter
matrices. Instead of solving all the parameters, two key variables
inside the parameter matrices are extracted and the fault location
is obtained by analytically solving a polynomial equation. The
method provides a closed-form analytical solution, and therefore
avoids convergence issues of iterative algorithms. In addition, line
asymmetry of untransposed transmission lines are fully considered
to minimize fault location errors. Extensive numerical experiments
show that the proposed method has improved fault location accu-
racy compared to the existing method, with different fault types,
locations and impedances.
Index Terms—Fault location, noniterative method, parameter-
free, untransposed transmission lines.
I. INTRODUCTION
ELIABLE operation of transmission lines is particularly
R vital to transmit power over long distances in modern
power systems. Faults may occur on the transmission lines.
Accurate fault location technology shortens the time for utility
crews to find the location of fault within the line, speeds up
Manuscript received September 26, 2020; revised January 23, 2021 and March
27, 2021; accepted May 24, 2021. Date of publication June 1, 2021; date of
current version May 24, 2022. This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China under Grant 51807119. Paper no. TPWRD-01444-
2020. (Corresponding author: Yu Liu.)
Dian Lu is with the School of Information Science and Technology, Shang-
haiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China, and also with the Shanghai Ad-
vanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Shanghai Institute
of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China (e-mail:
ludian@shanghaitech.edu.cn).
Yu Liu, Binglin Wang, and Dayou Lu are with the School of Informa-
tion Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210,
China (e-mail: liuyu.shanghaitech@gmail.com; wangbl@shanghaitech.edu.cn;
ludy@shanghaitech.edu.cn).
Shi Chen is with the State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Company Research
Institute, Nanjing 211103, China (e-mail: chenshi9004@126.com).
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at https:
//doi.org/10.1109/TPWRD.2021.3085746.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2021.3085746
0885-8977 © 2021 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 37, NO.
the electricity recovery process, and therefore improves the
power supply reliability of the power system. A large number
of researchers proposed extensive fault location techniques on
transmission lines in the literatures [1]–[5]. Existing transmis-
sion line fault location methods can be mainly classified into fun-
damental frequency phasor based methods, traveling wave based
methods, artificial intelligence based methods, etc. Specifically,
the traveling wave based methods locate faults by detecting
the arrival time of wavefronts at line terminals. However, the
traveling wave intensity generated by the fault could be too
low for reliable detection of wavefronts if the fault inception
angle is close to zero, and accurate fault location typically
requires high sampling rates and additional hardware costs
[6]–[7]. Artificial intelligence based methods (or data-driven
methods) locate faults considering the information embedded
inside the existing measurement data during faults. Nevertheless,
the methods generally need lots of high-quality training data
that can represent complete fault characteristics in the practical
transmission line of interest; these high-quality data may not be
available in practice [8]–[9]. In comparison, fundamental fre-
quency phasor based methods first build equations that describe
the relationship among voltage phasor measurements, current
phasor measurements and the unknown fault location, and then
solve the equations to achieve fault location. These methods are
the most widely adopted fault location methods in practice, and
are usually compatible with available measurement devices in
substations. Therefore, this paper will focus on the fundamental
frequency phasor based methods.
Fundamental frequency phasor based methods mainly include
one-end and two-end fault location methods. One-end fault lo-
cation methods usually calculate the location of fault according
to only the local voltage and current phasors. Although the
one-end fault location methods do not require remote side infor-
mation, the fault location accuracy is usually affected by source
impedances, loading conditions and fault impedances [10]. To
solve these limitations, two-end fault location methods were
proposed. These methods utilize voltage and current phasors
at both ends of the line to locate faults, with the requirement of
communication channels between terminals of the line. These
methods can be classified according to the availability of volt-
age/current measurements [11]–[13], or different models of the
transmission line such as lumped parameter model with or with-
out consideration of capacitance [10], or distributed parameter
LU et al.: IMPROVED NONITERATIVE PARAMETER-FREE FAULT LOCATION METHOD ON UNTRANSPOSED
models [14]–[15]. In addition, untransposed transmission lines
are also adopted in practical power systems and the asymmetry
of untransposed transmission lines will also affect the fault lo-
cation accuracy [16]. To solve these issues, literatures [17]–[18]
proposed fault location methods considering line asymmetry
with iterative calculations.
In fact, aforementioned fundamental frequency phasor based
fault location methods require known and accurate transmission
line parameters. However, the line parameters may not be ac-
curate in the utility dataset, or could even fluctuate due to the
weather and loading conditions. To overcome this limitation,
researchers proposed the parameter-free fault location methods
[19]–[25]. Literature [19] proposed an iterative parameter-free
fault location method for ideally transposed line neglecting the
shunt admittance of the line. Literature [20] also proposed an
iterative parameter-free method which improves [19] by con-
sidering the fully distributed parameter line model for ideally
transposed lines. Literature [21] proposed an iterative parameter-
free method for untransposed lines, by neglecting off-diagonal
elements of the shunt admittance matrix. In fact, most existing
parameter-free methods are iterative methods. The main lim-
itation of iterative methods is that they are sensitive towards
initial values and may encounter convergence issues. Therefore,
researchers also proposed noniterative parameter-free fault loca-
tion methods. Literature [22] proposed a noniterative parameter-
free fault location method on ideally transposed transmission
lines, with lumped impedance line model. Literatures [23]–[24]
proposed parameter-free fault location methods with nonitera-
tive solutions as well, to also consider asynchronization between
terminals; the methods are also designed for ideally transposed
transmission lines. To consider line asymmetry for untransposed
lines (which result in additional unknowns in the parameter
matrices), literature [25] proposed a noniterative parameter-free
method on untransposed transmission lines, with one-section
π line model. However, one-section π line model is not quite
accurate and may still compromise fault location accuracy.
The aim of this paper is to propose a noniterative algorithm
that can accurately locate faults on untransposed transmission
lines without knowing transmission line parameters. The chal-
lenge of this problem comes from the following fact. On one
hand, the modeling of the transmission line should be accurate
enough to consider shunt capacitances (preferably distributed
parameters) as well as asymmetry of the untransposed line.
On the other hand, noniterative analytical solutions usually
require relatively simple transmission line models. Therefore,
this paper proposes a noniterative parameter-free fault location
algorithm on untransposed transmission lines. The proposed
method can be considered as an extension to [25]. First, the
multi-section transmission line model with n sections is adopted
to well approximate the fully distributed parameters line model,
and the parameter-free fault location problem is formulated by
observing the physical laws that the line should obey before and
during the fault. Afterwards, the necessary condition to have
noniterative solutions is carefully derived, to provide guidance
on the range of section number n. Finally, the maximum possible
value of n (n = 2) is selected and in this case the noniterative
parameter free fault location method is derived. During the
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1357
Fig. 1. Example test system and typical tower structure in [25]. (a) Example
test system. (b) Typical tower structure.
derivation, instead of directly solving the unknown line param-
eters within the highly nonlinear and complicated problem, two
“key variables” embedded inside the parameter matrices are
extracted by observing the specific characteristics of the line
parameter matrices. Afterwards, the problem is much simplified
and the fault location can be analytically expressed by solving
a 4th order polynomial equation. The main contributions of the
paper are summarized as follows:
r The physical laws of the transmission line before and dur-
ing the fault are accurately described using multi-section
line model, with fully consideration of line asymmetry and
good approximation to distributed line parameters;
r To guarantee noniterative solutions of the fault location,
the maximum possible section number of the multi-section
line model is mathematically derived; this ensures that the
adopted line model is as accurate as possible;
r The fault location is obtained without solving all the
unknown line parameters; key variables are extracted by
observing the inherent characteristics of the parameter
matrices, and the fault location problem is much simplified;
r Compared to the state-of-the-art existing noniterative
method, the proposed method models the transmission
line more accurately with less assumptions, and therefore
demonstrates improved fault location accuracy.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Part II
reviews the state-of-the-art existing noniterative parameter-free
method on untransposed lines. Part III proposes the new nonit-
erative parameter-free fault location methodology. Part IV com-
pares the performance of the proposed method to the existing
method through numerical experiments. Part V makes further
discussions. Part VI concludes the paper.
II. REVIEW OF THE EXISTING NONITERATIVE
PARAMETER-FREE FAULT LOCATION METHOD ON
UNTRANSPOSED LINES
This part briefly reviews the state-of-the-art noniterative
parameter-free fault location method on untransposed transmis-
sion lines [25]. Fig. 1(a) shows the example test system. Three
phase (subscript ‘abc’) voltage (variable Ṽ ) and current (vari-
˜ phasor measurements before (superscript ‘P’) and during
able I)
(superscript ‘F’) the fault are available at the sending (superscript
‘s’) and receiving (superscript ‘r’) end of the transmission line:
Ṽ abc , Ṽ abc , I˜abc , I˜abc , Ṽ abc , Ṽ abc , I˜abc and I˜abc . The typical
s,P r,P s,P r,P s,F r,F s,F r,F
1358 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 37, NO. 3, JUNE 2022

tower structure of the untransposed transmission line is provided III. PROPOSED NONITERATIVE PARAMETER-FREE FAULT
in Fig. 1(b). This tower structure is widely adopted in EHV LOCATION METHODOLOGY
transmission circuits [25]. Due to geometric characteristics of In this part, the necessity of proposing a new noniterative
the tower, Zaa = Zcc , Zab = Zbc , Yaa = Ycc , and Yab = Ybc . An
parameter-free fault location method is firstly discussed. After-
additional approximation Yac = Yab /2 is made to further reduce
wards, the possibility of noniterative parameter-free fault loca-
the number of parameters. The three phase series impedance and tion method with n-section transmission line models is explored.
shunt admittance matrices of the entire transmission line Zabc
Finally, the proposed noniterative parameter-free fault location
and Yabc are given in (1).
method is derived.
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
Zaa Zab Zac Yaa Yab 1/2 · Yab
A. Necessity of a New Parameter-Free Fault Location Method
Z abc = ⎣ Zab Zbb Zab ⎦ Y abc = ⎣ Yab Ybb Yab ⎦
Zac Zab Zaa 1/2 · Yab Yab Yaa The existing noniterative parameter-free method has several
(1) limitations that may compromise its fault location accuracy.
First, the existing method constructs the lumped impedance Firstly, during the derivation of the analytical solutions, the ex-
line model without the line shunt admittance. Equation (2) and isting parameter-free method directly substitute (5) into the term
(I˜abc − xY abc /2 · Ṽ abc ) and [I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /2 · Ṽ abc ]
s,F s,F r,F r,F
(3) describe the physical laws before and during the fault, where
x denotes the location of fault (0 ≤ x ≤ 1), in (7), where equation (5) is obtained by the transmission
line model without the line shunt admittance. Secondly, an
Ṽ abc − Z abc I˜abc = Ṽ abc
s,P s,P r,P
(2)
assumption Yac = Yab /2 is made in the existing parameter-free
method, which are not accurate with general tower structures.
Thirdly, the existing parameter-free method only uses one sec-
Ṽ abc − xZ abc I˜abc = Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Z abc I˜abc
s,F s,F r,F r,F
(3)
tion π-equivalent circuit transmission line model, which may not
be quite accurate especially when dealing with relatively long
After substituting (1) into (2), one can express Zabc using Zab , transmission lines.
In fact, the difficulty of proposing an accurate noniterative
Z abc = A
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ parameter-free fault location algorithm comes from the fol-
A11 0 A13 B11 1 B11 lowing facts. On one hand, if the transmission line model is
+ Zab B = ⎣ 0 A22 0 ⎦ + Zab ⎣ 1 B22 1 ⎦ (4) relatively simplified (eg. model without shunt admittance, or
A13 0 A11 B11 1 B11 single-section π model), the line parameters can be solved
directly from the measurements, and the noniterative solutions
where matrices A and B are functions of available measurements,
can be obtained. For example in the existing method, Yabc
independent of the line parameter matrices. From (3) and (4),
matrix can be directly solved from (6) because the model is only
the location of fault can be approximated as,
one-section π and also additional assumption of matrix Yabc is
x = (M41 − M43 )/(M11 − M13 ) (5) made (otherwise if the number of unknown variables in Yabc
is larger than 3, the existing method will fail). However, these
where M11 , M13 , M41 and M43 are also functions of available
simplified models and assumptions may generate fault location
measurements, independent of the line parameter matrices.
errors. On the other hand, if the transmission line model is
The second step of the existing method is to construct the
rather complicated (for example multi-section π model or fully
one-section π transmission line model considering the line shunt
distributed model), the parameter matrices Zabc , Yabc and the
admittance. Similarly, equations (6) and (7) can be derived from
fault location x are strongly coupled together, and the derivation
the transmission line model before and during the fault,
of noniterative solutions of either the line parameters or the fault
I˜abc − Y abc /2·(Ṽ abc + Ṽ abc ) + I˜abc = 0
s,P s,P r,P r,P
(6) location are very difficult.
Therefore in the following parts, the authors will select the
Ṽ abc − xZ abc (I˜abc − xY abc /2 · Ṽ abc )
s,F s,F s,F
multi-section π-equivalent circuit transmission line models as
examples, and explore the possibility (necessary condition)
= Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Z abc [I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /2 · Ṽ abc ]
r,F r,F r,F
of noniterative parameter-free fault location algorithms with
(7) different selection of section number n. Afterwards, with the
From (1) and (6), one can observe that there are 3 unknowns in above observations, the authors will propose a new noniterative
Yabc and 3 equations. Therefore, the matrix Yabc can be directly parameter-free fault location algorithm.
solved. In addition, x in the terms (I˜abc − xY abc /2 · Ṽ abc ) and
s,F s,F

B. Exploring Noniterative Solutions With

[I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /2 · Ṽ abc ] of (7) can be approximated as
r,F r,F
(5). Therefore, the fault location x in (7) can be solved as,
x = (N41 − N43 )/(N11 − N13 )
where N11 , N13 , N41 and N43 are also functions of available
measurements, independent of the line parameter matrices.
n-Section Line Model
Multi-section transmission line model is a good approxima-
(8)
tion to the fully distributed parameter line model. Here the
multi-section line model with n-section π-equivalent circuits
is adopted. Specifically, the transmission line before the fault

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LU et al.: IMPROVED NONITERATIVE PARAMETER-FREE FAULT LOCATION METHOD ON UNTRANSPOSED 1359

For ith section during the fault (within the line at the left or
right side of the fault), the KCL and KVL can be expressed as,
si ,F si ,F si ,F si+1 ,F
Ṽ abc − xZ abc /n · (Ĩ abc − xY abc /2n · Ṽ abc ) = Ṽ abc
(12)

si ,F si ,F si+1 ,F si+1 ,F
Ĩ abc − xY abc /2n · Ṽ abc − xY abc /2n · Ṽ abc = Ĩ abc
Fig. 2. The n-section line model before the fault.
(13)

ri ,F ri ,F ri ,F
Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Z abc /n · (Ĩ abc − (1 − x)Y abc /2n · Ṽ abc )
ri+1 ,F
= Ṽ abc (14)

ri ,F ri ,F ri+1 ,F
Ĩ abc − (1 − x)Y abc /2n · Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Y abc /2n · Ṽ abc
ri+1 ,F
= Ĩ abc (15)

Therefore, before the fault, with (10) and (11), one can express
si+1 ,P si+1 ,P si ,P si ,P
Ṽ abc and Ĩ abc using Ṽ abc and Ĩ abc . After substitutions,
r,P sn+1 ,P r,P sn+1 ,P
Fig. 3. The n-section line model during the fault. Ṽ abc ( =Ṽ abc ) and Ĩ abc ( =Ĩ abc ) can be expressed as
s,P s1 ,P s,P s1 ,P
functions of Ṽ abc ( =Ṽ abc ) and Ĩ abc ( =Ĩ abc ),

fV (Ṽ abc , I˜abc , Z abc , Y abc ) = Ṽ abc

(n) s,P s,P r,P
is equally divided into n sections, as shown in Fig. 2. For (16)
transmission line during the fault, the line at the left side of
the fault is equally divided into n sections (same for the line at
fI (Ṽ abc , I˜abc , Z abc , Y abc ) = I˜abc
(n) s,P s,P r,P
si ,P si+1 ,P
the right side of the fault), as shown in Fig. 3. Ṽ abc , Ṽ abc , (17)
I˜abc and I˜abc are the three phase voltage and current phasors
si ,P si+1 ,P (n) (n)
where fV and fI are corresponding functions, and the su-
at the left and right side of the ith section before the fault (i = 1, perscript n denotes the model with n sections.
, I˜abc , I˜abc
endi ,F endi+1 ,F endi ,F endi+1 ,F
2, …, n). Ṽ abc , Ṽ abc are the three Similarly, during the fault, with (12) to (15), one can express
endi+1 ,F endi+1 ,F endi ,F endi ,F
phase voltage and current phasors at the left and right side of the Ṽ abc and Ĩ abc using Ṽ abc and Ĩ abc (end = s,
ith section during the fault (i = 1, 2, …, n), where end (end = s, sn+1 ,F
r). After substitutions, Ṽ abc can be expressed as functions of
r) corresponds to the variables within the line at the left (‘s’) or s,F s1 ,F s,F s1 ,F rn+1 ,F
Ṽ abc ( =Ṽ abc ) and Ĩ abc ( =Ĩ abc ); Ṽ abc can be expressed
the right side (‘r’) of the fault. r,F r1 ,F r,F r1 ,F
The tower structure is consistent with the typical structure as functions of Ṽ abc ( =Ṽ abc ) and Ĩ abc ( =Ĩ abc ). Since
sn+1 ,F rn+1 ,F
described in [25], as shown in Fig. 1(b). To be more general, Ṽ abc = Ṽ abc , the following equation holds,
here the line model is without the assumption of Yac = Yab /2, to (n) s,F s,F
ensure modeling accuracy. Here Zabc and Yabc are redefined as, gV (Ṽ abc , Ĩ abc , Z abc , Y abc , x)
⎡ ⎤ (n) r,F r,F
Zaa Zab Zac = gV (Ṽ abc , Ĩ abc , Z abc , Y abc , 1 − x) (18)
Z abc = ⎣ Zab Zbb Zab ⎦ (9)
(n)
Zac Zab Zaa where gV is the corresponding function, and the superscript n
denotes the model with n sections. Note that from the symmetry
⎡ ⎤
Yaa Yab Yac of the problem, the functions at the left and the right side of the
Y abc = ⎣ Yab Ybb Yab ⎦ equation are the same but with different input variables.
Yac Yab Yaa Next, the possibility of deriving a noniterative analytical so-
lution of fault location x from equation (16) to (18) is discussed.
For ith section before the fault, the Kirchhoff’s voltage laws First, one can observe that there are 9 complex equations, 8
(KVLs) and current laws (KCLs) can be expressed as, complex unknown variables (4 in Zabc and 4 in Yabc , respec-
si ,P si ,P si ,P si+1 ,P tively) and 1 real unknown variable x. If we rewrite the complex
Ṽ abc − Z abc /n · (Ĩ abc − Y abc /2n · Ṽ abc ) = Ṽ abc
equations into real equations by separating real and imaginary
(10)
parts, there are 18 equations and 17 unknowns. Also, since
the rows of equations are generally independent, theoretically
si ,P si ,P si+1 ,P si+1 ,P
Ĩ abc − Y abc /2n · Ṽ abc − Y abc /2n · Ṽ abc = Ĩ abc speaking one can use equation (16) to (18) to calculate all
(11) the unknown parameters and the fault location x via iterative

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1360 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 37, NO. 3, JUNE 2022

methods. However, similar as existing iterative methods, since
these equations are highly nonlinear, iterative methods will be
sensitive to initial values and possibly encounter convergence
issues. Therefore, noniterative analytical solutions are preferable
in this case.
Nevertheless, since these equations are complicated and
highly nonlinear, noniterative analytical solutions are generally
very difficult to be obtained with an arbitrarily given section
number n. In fact, from (12) and (13), the highest order of x is
si ,F si ,F si+1 ,F
2 (or 3) if we utilize Ṽ abc and Ĩ abc to express Ṽ abc
si+1 ,F
Ĩ abc ) (similarly for equation 14 and 15). Recursively, one can
observe that the highest order of x is 2n (or 2n+1) if we utilize
end1 ,F end1 ,F endn+1 ,F endn+1 ,F
Ṽ abc and Ĩ abc to express Ṽ abc (or Ĩ abc ) (end
= s, r). Therefore, from (18), even we aggressively assume that
we somehow solve all the parameters of Zabc and Yabc from
(16) to (18) (which is not quite likely), one can observe that the
highest order of x in (18) is 2n. Since there is no analytical solu-
tion (or mathematically speaking “no solution in radicals”) to a
general polynomial equation of degree 5 or higher, the necessary
condition to have a noniterative solution is to select n such that 2n
< 5. Note that here larger section number corresponds to more
accurate transmission line model, and therefore the maximum
possible value n = 2 is selected. Also, here n = 2 satisfies the
necessary condition but the condition itself is not sufficient: there
is no guarantee of noniterative solutions even with n = 2, and
therefore careful derivations are still required.
C. The Proposed Parameter-Free Fault Location Method
Next, the noniterative solution with n = 2 is mathematically
derived. Note that the derivation of the noniterative solution
with n = 2 is much more difficult than that of the existing
method, for the following reasons. First, unlike the existing
method which directly solves the matrix Yabc from (6) with
3 complex equations and 3 complex unknowns, there are 6
equations and 8 knowns in (16) and (17), and matrices Zabc and
Yabc are strongly coupled together. Therefore, direct solutions of
Zabc and Yabc are extremely difficult. In addition, if we solve the
fault location x together with Zabc and Yabc in (18), the highest
order of the equation could be easily higher than 4, resulting in
no noniterative solutions.
With above challenges, in this part we carefully derive the
noniterative solution by taking full use of the inherent geometric
characteristics of the untransposed transmission line. Instead of
solving the entire Zabc and Yabc , we first extract two “key vari-
ables” embedded inside the parameter matrices of the untrans-
posed transmission line. After obtaining the two key variables
from the available measurements, the fault location x can be
solved. Through this routine, the complicated nonlinearity of
the problem can be much mitigated.
First, with n = 2, equation (16) to (18) can be rewritten as,
Ṽ abc − Z abc /2·(I˜abc − Y abc /4·Ṽ abc )
s,P s,P s,P
(19)
= Ṽ abc − Z abc /2·(I˜abc − Y abc /4·Ṽ abc )
r,P r,P r,P
Before the fault, for (19) and (20) as shown at the bottom of
this page, the difference between the 1st and the 3rd row can be
rewritten as,
Zaa − Zac
(or
= 2(J1 − J2 )/[(J3 − J4 ) − (Yaa − Yac )(J1 − J2 )/4] (22)
Zaa − Zac
(Yaa − Yac )(J1 + J2 )/2 − (J3 + J4 )
=
(Yaa − Yac )(J3 + J4 )/8 − (Yaa − Yac )2 (J1 + J2 )/32
(23)
where J1 = Ṽas,P − Ṽcs,P , J2 = Ṽar,P − Ṽcr,P , J3 = I˜as,P −
I˜cs,P , and J4 = I˜ar,P − I˜cr,P .
One can observe that from (22) and (23), Ykey = Yaa −Yac
and Zkey = Zaa −Zac are two “key variables” of the parameter
matrices Zabc and Yabc . From (22) and (23), Ykey and Zkey can
be analytically solved. Substitute (22) into (23),
H1 Ykey 2 + H2 Ykey + H3 = 0 (24)
where H1 = (J1 2 − J2 2 )/16, H2 = −(J1 + J2 )(J3 − J4 )/2 ,
H3 = J3 2 − J4 2 .
The solutions to (24) is,
 
Ykey = (−H2 ± H2 2 − 4H1 H3 ) (2H1 ) (25)
Note that there are two solutions of Ykey . The correct solution
can be obtained by checking the order of magnitude and the
polarity (positive/negative) of the value. Afterwards, Zkey can
also be calculated by substituting Ykey into (22). The calculation
of the two “key variables” only requires available measurements,
and does not require line parameter matrices.
During the fault, for (21) as shown at the bottom of the next
page, similarly, the difference between the 1st and the 3rd row
can be rewritten as,
ax4 + bx3 + cx2 + dx + e = 0 (26)
where a = Zkey 2 Ykey 2 (K2 − K1 )/32, b = Zkey 2 Ykey (K4 −
Ykey K2 +K3 )/8, c=Zkey Ykey (K2 −K1 )/2−3/8 · Zkey 2 Ykey
K4 +3/16 · Zkey 2 Ykey 2 K2 , d = Zkey (K4 + K3 ) − Zkey Ykey
K2 + Zkey 2 Ykey [3/8 · K4 − 1/8 · Ykey K2 ], e = K2 − K1 −
Zkey K4 +Zkey Ykey K2 /2−Zkey 2 Ykey K4 /8+Zkey 2 Ykey 2 K2 /
32, K1 = Ṽas,F − Ṽcs,F , K2 = Ṽar,F − Ṽcr,F , K3 = I˜as,F −
I˜cs,F , K4 = I˜ar,F − I˜cr,F .

I˜abc − Y abc /4 · Ṽ abc − Y abc /4 · [Ṽ abc − Z abc /2 · (I˜abc − Y abc /4 · Ṽ abc )]
s,P s,P s,P s,P s,P

= −{I˜abc − Y abc /4 · Ṽ abc − Y abc /4 · [Ṽ abc − Z abc /2 · (I˜abc − Y abc /4 · Ṽ abc )]}
r,P r,P r,P r,P r,P
(20)

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LU et al.: IMPROVED NONITERATIVE PARAMETER-FREE FAULT LOCATION METHOD ON UNTRANSPOSED 1361

One can observe that, due to the inherent geometric character- in PSCAD/EMTDC, as shown in Fig. 1(a). The system is a
istics of the untransposed transmission line, the equation consists three phase system with the rated voltage of 500 kV and the
of Ykey , Zkey , x, and other available measurements, with x as the nominal frequency of 50 Hz. The source impedances per phase
only unknown variable. The highest order of x in (26) is 4 = 2n, at the sending and the receiving end are 10∠80◦ Ω and 15∠75◦ Ω,
which is consistent with the results in part III.B. The analytical respectively. The phase angles of the power sources at the
solutions to (26) are, sending and the receiving end are 30° and 0°, respectively. The
transmission line of interest is with the length of 200 km and
b
x1,2 = − with the tower structure in Fig. 1(b), where h = 30 m, h1 =
4a
  2 m and d = 10 m. The frequency dependent model (phase)
1 b2 2c 1 b2 4c of the transmission line is adopted during PSCAD/EMTDC
− 2
− +Δ± − − Δ − Δ3 (27)
2 4a 3a 2 2a2 3a simulation to ensure accuracy. Three phase voltage and current
measurements are installed at both terminals of the transmission
line. The instantaneous voltages and currents are first captured
b
x3,4 = − using 4000 samples/second (80 samples/cycle) sampling rate
4a according to IEC61850-9-2LE standard [26]. Afterwards, the
 
1 b2 2c 1 b2 4c phasors are calculated according to IEEE C37.118 standard
+ 2
− +Δ± − − Δ + Δ3 (28)
2 4a 3a 2 2a2 3a [27]. Note that the voltage level of untransposed lines can vary
within a large range (eg. 345kV [16], 400kV [25], 500kV [29],
where Δ1 = c2 − 3bd + 12ae ,  Δ2 = 2c3 − 9bcd + 27ad2 + 765kV [30], 1000kV [31], etc.). Here a 500 kV untransposed
√
27b2 e − 72ace, Δ = 2Δ1 /(3a Δ2 + −4Δ1 3 + Δ2 2 ) +
3 3
line is selected as an example, however, the applicability of the
 √ proposed method is similar for other voltage levels.
Δ2 + −4Δ1 3 +Δ2 2 /(3 3 2a), and Δ3 =(−b3 /a3 +4bc/a2
3

Next the proposed method is validated via 5 test cases with

− 8d/a)/(4 b2 /4a2 − 2c/3a + Δ).
Here there are four solutions of fault location x. The correct
solution can be obtained by checking whether the fault location
is within the range 0 ≤ x ≤ 1.
It is worth noting that similar ideas can be applied when the
section number n is selected as 3, as shown in the Appendix.
However, one can observe from equation (A7) that the highest
order of x in the corresponding polynomial is 6 = 2n, which is
also consistent with the results in part III.B. This polynomial
does not have noniterative solutions. This further proves that
the maximum possible value of n should indeed be 2 to ensure
noniterative solutions to the problem.
To sum up, the proposed fault location method does not need to
calculate all the parameters of the transmission line of interest.
With the observation of inherent geometric characteristics of
the untransposed lines, the proposed method first extracts and
solves two key variables. Afterwards, the fault location can be
accurately calculated with a noniterative analytical solution.
The modeling accuracy as well as the fault location accuracy
of the proposed noniterative fault location method is improved
compared to the existing noniterative method.
IV. NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS
In order to verify the performance of the proposed method,
a two-terminal untransposed transmission line system is built
different fault types and fault impedances. In each test case,
different fault locations through the entire line (21 fault loca-
tions, every 10 km) and 4 different fault impedances are studied,
resulting in 84 fault events. The absolute fault location errors (in
percentage) of the proposed noniterative fault location method
are compared to those of the existing state-of-the-art noniterative
fault location method in [25]. The absolute fault location error
(in percentage) is defined as,
Error(%)
Estimated location − Actual location
= × 100% (29)
Line length
A. Test Case 1: Single Phase to Ground Faults
This test case studies low impedance A-G faults with different
fault locations and fault impedances. The fault impedances are
chosen as 0.01 ohm, 1 ohm, 5 ohm and 10 ohm. The fault
location errors of the existing and the proposed method are
depicted in Fig. 4 and Table I. The maximum fault location
errors of the existing and the proposed method are 1.8427%
and 0.0537%, respectively. The results demonstrate improved
fault location accuracy of the proposed method compared to the
existing method.

Ṽ abc − Z abc x/2 · (I˜abc − Y abc x/4 · Ṽ abc ) − Z abc x/2 · {I˜abc
s,F s,F s,F s,F

−Y abc x/4 · Ṽ abc − Y abc x/2 · [Ṽ abc − Z abc x/2 · (I˜abc − Y abc x/4
s,F s,F s,F

·Ṽ abc )]} = Ṽ abc − Z abc (1 − x)/2 · [I˜abc − Y abc (1 − x)/4 · Ṽ abc ]
s,F r,F r,F r,F

−Z abc (1 − x)/2 · {I˜abc − Y abc (1 − x)/4 · Ṽ abc − Y abc (1 − x)/2

r,F r,F

·{Ṽ abc − Z abc (1 − x)/2 · [I˜abc − Y abc (1 − x)/4 · Ṽ abc ]}}

r,F r,F r,F
(21)

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1362
Fig. 4. Absolute errors of low impedance A-G faults with different fault
locations and impedances.
TABLE I
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF LOW IMPEDANCE A-G
FAULTS WITH DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND IMPEDANCES
Fig. 5. Absolute errors of low impedance B-C faults with different fault
locations and impedances.
TABLE II
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF LOW IMPEDANCE B-C
FAULTS WITH DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND IMPEDANCES
B. Test Case 2: Phase to Phase Faults
This test case studies low impedance B-C faults with different
fault locations and fault impedances. The fault impedances are
chosen as 0.01 ohm, 1 ohm, 5 ohm and 10 ohm. The fault
location errors of the existing and the proposed method are
depicted in Fig. 5 and Table II. The maximum fault location
errors of the existing and the proposed method are 1.0954%
and 0.0273%, respectively. The results demonstrate improved
fault location accuracy of the proposed method compared to the
existing method.
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Fig. 6. Absolute errors of low impedance BC-G faults with different fault
locations and impedances.
TABLE III
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF LOW IMPEDANCE BC-G
FAULTS WITH DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND IMPEDANCES
Fig. 7 Absolute errors of low impedance three phase faults with different fault
locations and impedances.
C. Test Case 3: Double Phase to Ground Faults
This test case studies low impedance BC-G faults with differ-
ent fault locations and fault impedances. The fault impedances
are chosen as 0.01 ohm, 1 ohm, 5 ohm and 10 ohm. The fault
location errors of the existing and the proposed method are
depicted in Fig. 6 and Table III. The maximum fault location
errors of the existing and the proposed method are 1.5556%
and 0.0223%, respectively. The results demonstrate improved
fault location accuracy of the proposed method compared to the
existing method.
D. Test Case 4: Three Phase Faults
This test case studies low impedance three phase faults
with different fault locations and fault impedances. The fault
impedances are chosen as 0.01 ohm, 1 ohm, 5 ohm and 10 ohm.
The fault location errors of the existing and the proposed method
are depicted in Fig. 7 and Table IV. The maximum fault location
errors of the existing and the proposed method are 0.8085%
and 0.0260%, respectively. The results demonstrate improved
LU et al.: IMPROVED NONITERATIVE PARAMETER-FREE FAULT LOCATION METHOD ON UNTRANSPOSED
TABLE IV
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF LOW IMPEDANCE THREE
PHASE FAULTS WITH DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND IMPEDANCES
Fig. 8. Absolute errors of high impedance A-G faults with different fault
locations and impedances.
TABLE V
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF HIGH IMPEDANCE A-G
FAULTS WITH DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND IMPEDANCES
fault location accuracy of the proposed method compared to the
existing method.
E. Test Case 5: High Impedance Faults
This test case studies high impedance A-G faults with differ-
ent fault locations and fault impedances. The fault impedances
are chosen as 100 ohm, 200 ohm, 300 ohm and 500 ohm. The
fault location errors of the existing and the proposed method
are depicted in Fig. 8 and Table V. The maximum fault location
errors of the existing and the proposed method are 28.8406%
and 0.8080%, respectively. The results demonstrate improved
fault location accuracy of the proposed method compared to the
existing method.
F. Summary
From test cases 1 to 5, one can observe that the proposed
method has improved fault location accuracy compared to
the existing methods, regardless of fault types, locations and
impedances. It is worth noting that the improved accuracy of
the proposed method comes from the fact that it overcomes
the three limitations as mentioned in the first paragraph of part
III.A. Specifically for the example test system, among those
limitations, the first limitation (utilization of line model without
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1363
shunt admittances during the derivation) and the third limitation
(single section π model) are the primary reasons for the improved
fault location results.
V. DISCUSSIONS
In this part, further discussions are made to ensure practica-
bility of the proposed method, including pseudo solutions of
the algorithm, effect of loading conditions, effect of measure-
ment errors, effect of line parameters, effect of unsynchronized
measurements, comparison to other existing methods and impor-
tance to model line asymmetry for untransposed lines, and ap-
plicability to transposed lines. For part V.A to V.E, 100 ohm A-G
faults are selected as examples. For part V.F and V.G, A-G faults
with different low and high fault impedances are selected as
examples. Note that the proposed method demonstrates similar
advantages towards existing methods for other fault scenarios.
A. Pseudo Solutions of the Algorithm
One can observe from (25), (27) and (28) that there could
be more than one solution during the proposed fault location
procedure. Among these solutions, only one solution is the
correct solution while others should be neglected (here we refer
them as ‘pseudo solutions’).
First, equation (25) will result in 2 solutions of Ykey . As
mentioned after (25) in part III.C, the pseudo solutions can be
neglected by checking the order of magnitude and the polarity
of the value. For a typical 200 km overhead transmission line,
Ykey should be a positive number, with the order of magnitude
of 10−4 ∼10−3 mho. Note that since the calculation of Ykey
only requires measurements prior to the fault, the fault types,
locations and impedances will not influence the calculation
results of Ykey . The two solutions of Ykey are (2.0125×10−6 +
j9.0063×10−4 mho) and (0.0075 – j0.3151 mho) with the magni-
tude of 9.01×10−4 mho and 3.15×10−1 mho, respectively. It can
be observed that only one solution is with a positive imaginary
part, and falls into the correct order of magnitude (10−4 ∼10−3
mho). The other solution is with a negative imaginary part, and
the magnitude of the solution is around 350 times larger than the
correct solution. This proves that the pseudo solutions of Ykey
can be clearly identified and neglected.
Second, equation (27) and (28) will result in 4 solutions of
fault location x. As mentioned after (28) in part III.C, the pseudo
solutions can be neglected by observing that the correct fault
location is within the range 0 ≤ x ≤ 1. Here the results of a
group of A-G faults with 100 ohm fault impedance and different
fault locations through the line are shown as examples. The four
roots of x are depicted in Fig. 9. One can clearly observe that
only one solution falls within the range of 0 ≤ x ≤ 1, while
other solutions are way beyond the range. Therefore, the pseudo
solutions of x can also be clearly identified and neglected.
B. Effect of Loading Conditions
This test case studies 100 ohm A-G faults with different fault
locations and loading conditions (various phase angle differ-
ences between the two sources). The fault location errors of
1364
Fig. 9. Four solutions of calculated fault location x for 100 ohm A-G faults
with different fault locations.
Fig. 10. Absolute errors of 100 ohm A-G faults with different fault locations
and loading conditions.
TABLE VI
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF 100 OHM A-G FAULTS WITH
DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND LOADING CONDITIONS
the existing method [25] and the proposed method are shown
in Fig. 10 and Table VI. For those results, the phase angle
of the sending end is leading that of the receiving end. The
maximum fault location errors of the existing and the proposed
method are 6.8082% and 0.2906%, respectively. The results
demonstrate improved fault location accuracy of the proposed
method compared to the existing method with different loading
conditions.
From Fig. 10, the curve of the existing method becomes less
“symmetrical” (the axis of symmetry is the midpoint of the
line where fault location = 100 km) with higher phase angle
differences. In fact, one can also observe from Fig. 4 to Fig. 8 that
the curve of the existing method becomes less “symmetrical”
with higher fault impedances. The main reason is that the load
current itself is “asymmetrical” (in this case the load current
is flowing from the sending end to the receiving end). Within
the measured fault current, the percentage of the load current
(or percentage of the “asymmetry”) is higher with larger phase
angle differences or higher fault impedances.
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Fig. 11. Absolute errors of 100 ohm A-G faults with different fault locations
and measurement conditions.
TABLE VII
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF 100 OHM A-G FAULTS WITH
DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND MEASUREMENT CONDITIONS
TABLE VIII
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF 100 OHM A-G FAULTS WITH
DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND LINE PARAMETERS
C. Effect of Measurement Errors
This test case studies 100 ohm A-G faults with different
fault locations and different measurement errors. Here Gaussian
distributed errors with different standard deviations are added
to the instantaneous measurements. The fault location errors of
the existing method [25] and the proposed method are shown in
Fig. 11 and Table VII. The maximum fault location errors of the
existing and the proposed method are 4.2747% and 1.6192%,
respectively. The results demonstrate improved fault location
accuracy of the proposed method compared to the existing
method with different measurement errors.
D. Effect of Line Parameters
This test case studies 100 ohm A-G faults with different fault
locations and different line parameters. Here 5 parameters are
considered: C1 represents the distance between phase conduc-
tors (d in Fig. 1(b)); C2 represents the height of phase conductors
(h in Fig. 1(b)). C3 represents the diameter of phase conductors;
C4 represents the DC resistance of phase conductors; and C5
represents the resistivity of the soil. The fault location errors
of the proposed method with parameter variations (+50% and
−50%) are shown in Fig. 12 and Table VIII (the maximum and
LU et al.: IMPROVED NONITERATIVE PARAMETER-FREE FAULT LOCATION METHOD ON UNTRANSPOSED
Fig. 12. Absolute errors of 100 ohm A-G faults with different fault locations
and line parameters.
Fig. 13. Absolute errors of 100 ohm A-G faults with different fault locations
and synchronization errors.
the average absolute fault location errors with original parame-
ters can be found in Table V). The maximum fault location errors
with parameter variations and original parameters are 0.2158%
and 0.1916%, respectively. The results show that the proposed
method is insensitive towards different line parameters.
E. Effect of Unsynchronized Measurements
In this paper, best implementation of the proposed fault lo-
cation method requires synchronized measurements, which can
be achieved via GPS synchronization. Nevertheless, for cases
where accurate GPS synchronization is not available (loss of
GPS signal, GPS spoofing attack, GPS not installed, etc.), if the
synchronization error cannot be corrected, there will be addi-
tional fault location errors, since the derivation of the proposed
method assumes synchronized measurements at terminals (same
for the existing method [25]).
To examine the effect of unsynchronized measurements, a
group of 100 ohm phase A to ground faults are studied, with
different fault locations and different synchronization errors.
The example synchronization errors are 0, 1, 2 and 5 degrees,
respectively. The fault location errors of the existing method [25]
and the proposed method are shown in Fig. 13 and Table IX.
One can observe that the fault location error increases with
larger synchronization error. If the synchronization error is rather
small, the proposed method still demonstrates improved fault
location accuracy compared to the existing method, and the fault
location accuracy remains within an acceptable range. However,
when the synchronization error is relatively large (eg. 5 degrees),
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1365
TABLE IX
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF 100 OHM A-G FAULTS WITH
DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND SYNCHRONIZATION ERRORS
the fault location errors are mainly caused by the synchronization
error; in this case the performances of the two methods are
comparable, and the fault location errors are relatively large.
Therefore, noniterative parameter-free fault location method on
untransposed lines with unsynchronized measurements may still
require further investigations in the future.
F. Comparison to Other Existing Methods and Importance to
Model Line Asymmetry for Untransposed Lines
In fact, many parameter-free fault location methods in the
existing literatures are with the assumption that the transmission
line is ideally-transposed. However, applying these methods to
untransposed transmission lines will cause fault location errors
since the asymmetry of the transmission line is not considered.
This test case first studies A-G faults on the untransposed trans-
mission line with different fault locations and different low fault
impedances (0.01 ohm, 1 ohm, 5 ohm and 10 ohm). To further
validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, here we select
two existing methods [20], [24] (with the assumption of ideally
transposed lines) and one existing method [28] (considering
asymmetry of untransposed lines) as examples. Method [20]
is an iterative parameter-free fault location method for ideally
transposed lines, with fully distributed parameter model. Here
to ensure best performance of this iterative method, the initial
values are selected to be very close to the actual parameters
and fault location (in practice inappropriate selection of initial
values could possible cause convergence issues). Method [24] is
a noniterative parameter-free fault location method for ideally
transposed lines, with lumped impedance line model. Method
[28] is a noniterative parameter-free fault location method for
untransposed lines, with lumped impedance line model that con-
siders line asymmetry. The fault location errors of the existing
methods [20], [24], [28] and the proposed method are shown in
Fig. 14 and Table X. The maximum fault location errors of the
existing methods [20], [24], [28] and the proposed method are
1.6462%, 9.8295%, 1.8574% and 0.0537%, respectively. One
can observe that the lumped impedance line model in [24] brings
relatively large error for long transmission lines. In addition,
even with fully distributed parameter model in [20], the fault
location accuracy could still be compromised since line asym-
metry is not considered. Furthermore, although method [28] only
utilizes the lumped impedance line model, the accuracy of fault
location is still comparable to method [20] (fully distributed
parameter model) due to the consideration of line asymmetry.
These results demonstrate that the proposed method presents
higher accuracy compared to other existing methods, and it is
1366
Fig. 14. Absolute errors of low impedance A-G faults with different fault
locations and impedances, method [20], [24], [28] and proposed method.
TABLE X
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF LOW IMPEDANCE A-G
FAULTS WITH DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND IMPEDANCES, METHOD [20],
[24], [28] AND PROPOSED METHOD
Fig. 15. Absolute errors of high impedance A-G faults with different fault
locations and impedances, method [20], [24], [28] and proposed method.
essential to model line asymmetry for untransposed transmission
lines.
To examine the performances of those methods during high
impedance faults, a group of high impedance A-G faults on the
untransposed line is studied, with fault impedances of 100 ohm,
200 ohm, 300 ohm and 500 ohm. The results are provided in
Fig. 15 and Table XI. The maximum fault location errors of
the existing methods [20], [24], [28] and the proposed method
are 1.6462%, 164.7048%, 28.3840% and 0.8080%, respectively.
One can observe that the fault location errors of the existing
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TABLE XI
AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM ABSOLUTE ERRORS OF HIGH IMPEDANCE A-G
FAULTS WITH DIFFERENT FAULT LOCATIONS AND IMPEDANCES,
METHOD [20], [24], [28] AND PROPOSED METHOD
Fig. 16. Absolute errors of A-G faults with different fault locations and low
fault impedances on ideally transposed lines.
method [20] and the proposed method are relatively small,
while the rest of the two methods have much larger errors. The
proposed method still presents higher fault location accuracy
compared to the existing methods. Note that method [20] is an
iterative method and may encounter convergence issues without
proper initial values, while the proposed method is noniterative
with analytical solutions.
G. Applicability to Transposed Lines
Although the proposed method is designed for untransposed
lines, the proposed fault location method still works equally well
on ideally transposed transmission lines. For ideally transposed
lines, the parameter matrices have the following structures: for
either Zabc or Yabc matrix, the diagonal elements are the same
(Zs or Ys ), and the off-diagonal elements are the same (Zm or
Ym ). One can observe that these structures also satisfy (9), and
therefore the method is also be applicable to ideally transposed
lines (ideally transposed lines can be considered as a special case
of untransposed lines).
To validate the applicability of the proposed method to
ideally transposed lines, the line of interest in the example
test system is updated as an ideally transposed line (the rest
of the test system remains unchanged). A group of phase A
to ground faults are studied with different fault locations and
impedances (0.01 ohm, 1 ohm, 5 ohm,10 ohm, 100 ohm, 200
ohm, 300 ohm and 500 ohm). Fig. 16 and Fig. 17 show the results
of the proposed fault location method on ideally transposed
LU et al.: IMPROVED NONITERATIVE PARAMETER-FREE FAULT LOCATION METHOD ON UNTRANSPOSED 1367

Fig. 17. Absolute errors of A-G faults with different fault locations and high
fault impedances on ideally transposed lines.
transmission lines. The maximum fault location errors with
0.01 ohm, 1 ohm, 5 ohm, 10 ohm, 100 ohm, 200 ohm, 300
ohm and 500 ohm fault impedances are 0.0509%, 0.0461%,
0.0461%, 0.0552%, 0.2067%, 0.3729%, 0.5329% and 0.8713%
respectively. In comparison, the maximum fault location errors
of the proposed method on untransposed transmission lines
with corresponding fault impedances are comparable: 0.0490%,
0.0464%, 0.0458%, 0.0537%, 0.1916%, 0.3451%, 0.4995%
and 0.8080% respectively, as shown in Table I and Table V.
Therefore, the proposed fault location method is applicable to
not only untransposed lines but also ideally transposed lines.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper proposes a noniterative parameter-free fault
location method on untransposed transmission lines, which
provides a closed-form analytical fault location solution with
full consideration of line asymmetry. To ensure model accuracy,
the paper first explores possibilities of noniterative fault location
solutions with multi-section line model, resulting in maximum
possible selection of the section number. Next, with the selected
section number, the analytical solution of the fault location is
carefully derived by observing the special characteristics of
the line parameter matrices. In this case, instead of solving
all the line parameters, the method only needs to solve two
key variables and the solution to the fault location problem is
greatly simplified. In the numerical experiments, the results
verify that the proposed method demonstrates higher accuracy
than the existing method, regardless of different locations, types
and impedances of faults. The method also shows robustness
against different loading conditions, measurement errors and
parameter variations, and is also applicable to transposed lines.
APPENDIX
This Appendix provides the derivation of the parameter-free
fault location method with section number n = 3, which is an
example to verify that there is indeed no noniterative solution
when the section number is n ≥ 3. The idea of the parameter-free

I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6 − Y abc [Ṽ abc − Z abc (I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6) 3] 3
s,P s,P s,P s,P s,P

(A1)
= −{(I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6 − Y abc [Ṽ abc − Z abc (I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6) 3] 3}
r,P r,P r,P r,P r,P

Ṽ abc − Z abc (I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6) 3 − Z abc /3·{I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6 − Y abc /3
s,P s,P s,P s,P s,P

(A2)
[Ṽ abc − Z abc (I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6) 3] = Ṽ abc − Z abc (I˜abc − Y abc Ṽ abc 6) 3
s,P s,P s,P r,P r,P r,P

Ṽ abc − xZ abc /3·(I˜abc − xY abc /6·Ṽ abc ) − xZ abc /3·(I˜abc − xY abc /6·Ṽ abc −
s,F s,F s,F s,F s,F

xY abc /3·(Ṽ abc − xZ abc /3·(I˜abc − xY abc /6·Ṽ abc ))) − xZ abc /3 · (I˜abc − xY abc
s,F s,F s,F s,F

/6 · Ṽ abc − xY abc /3·(Ṽ abc − xZ abc /3·(I˜abc − xY abc /6·Ṽ abc )) − xY abc /3
s,F s,F s,F s,F

(Ṽ abc − xZ abc /3·(I˜abc − xY abc /6·Ṽ abc ) − xZ abc /3·(I˜abc − xY abc /6·Ṽ abc
s,F s,F s,F s,F s,F

−xY abc /3·(Ṽ abc − xZ abc /3·(I˜abc − xY abc /6·Ṽ abc ))))) = Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Z abc
s,F s,F s,F r,F

/3 · (I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc ) − (1 − x)Z abc /3·(I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc
r,F r,F r,F r,F
(A3)
− (1 − x)Z abc /3·(I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc ))) − (1 − x)
r,F r,F r,F
−(1 − x)Y abc /3·(Ṽ abc
Z abc /3·(I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Y abc /3·[Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Z abc /3·
r,F r,F r,F

(I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc )] − (1 − x)Y abc /3·(Ṽ abc − (1−x)Z abc /3·(I˜abc
r,F r,F r,F r,F

−(1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc ) − (1 − x)Z abc /3·(I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc −
r,F r,F r,F

(1 − x)Y abc /3·(Ṽ abc − (1 − x)Z abc /3·(I˜abc − (1 − x)Y abc /6·Ṽ abc )))))
r,F r,F r,F

(J3 + J4 ) − (Yaa − Yac )(J1 + J2 )/2

Zaa − Zac = (A4)
(Yaa − Yac )2 (J1 + J2 )/54 − (Yaa − Yac )(J3 + J4 )/9
0 = (J1 − J2 ) − (Zaa − Zac )(2J3 − J4 )/3 + (Zaa − Zac )(Yaa − Yac )/18 · (4J1
(A5)
−J2 ) − (Zaa − Zac )2 (Yaa − Yac )J3 /27 + (Zaa − Zac )2 (Yaa − Yac )2 J1 /162

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1368
fault location with n = 3 is the same as n = 2 as shown in part
III.C. First, the physical laws that the line should obey before
and during the fault are described. Afterwards, the key variables
are extracted and the polynomial equation that the fault location
should satisfy is derived. Note that the definitions of variables
are consistent with those in part III.C.
With n = 3, equation (16) to (18) can be rewritten as,
Before the fault, for (A1) and (A2) as shown at the bottom of
the previous page, the difference between the 1st and the 3rd row
can be rewritten as,
In (A4) and (A5) as shown at the bottom of the previous page,
similarly one can observe that Ykey = Yaa −Yac and Zkey =
Zaa −Zac are the two “key variables” of the parameter matrices
Zabc and Yabc . From (A4) and (A5), Ykey and Zkey can be
analytically solved. Substitute (A4) into (A5),
L1 Ykey 3 + L2 Ykey 2 + L3 Ykey + L4 = 0
where L1 = (J1 + J2 )2 [(J1 − J2 )/2916 − (4J1 − J2 )/1944
+ J1 /648], L2 = [4(4J1 − J2 )(J1 + J2 )(J3 + J4 ) + 3(2J3 −
J4 )(J1 + J2 )2 ]/972 − (J1 2 −J2 2 )(J3 + J4 )/243 − [J1 · (J1
+ J2 )(J3 + J4 )/162 + J3 (J1 + J2 )2 /108], L3 =(J3 +J4 )2
2
(J1 −J2 )/81−[(4J1 −J2 )(J3 + J4 ) + 4(2J3 − J4 ) (J3 + J4 )
(J1 + J2 )]/162 + [J1 (J3 + J4 )2 /162 + J3 (J1 + J2 )(J3 +J4 )
/27], and L4 = (J3 − J4 )(J3 + J4 )2 /27.
Therefore, Ykey can be obtained from (A6) by noniteratively
solving the polynomial equation of degree 3. Similarly, the
correct solution can also be obtained by checking the order of
magnitude and the polarity of the value. Afterwards, Zkey can
be calculated by substituting Ykey into (A4).
During the fault, for (A3) as shown at the bottom of the next
page, similarly, the difference between the 1st and the 3rd row
can be rewritten as,
a1 x6 + b1 x5 + c1 x4 + d1 x3 + e1 x2 + f1 x + g1 = 0 (A7)
where a1 = Zkey 3 Ykey 3 (K1 −K2 )/1458, b1 = Zkey 3 Ykey 2
[Ykey K2 − (K3 + K4 )]/243, c1 = Zkey 2 Ykey 2 (K1 − K2 )/27
+ 5Zkey 3 Ykey 2 (2K4 − Ykey K2 )/486, d1 = 10Zkey 3 Ykey 2
2
(Ykey K2 − 3K4 )/729 + 4Zkey Ykey (Ykey K2 −K3 −K4 )/27,
e1 = Zkey Ykey (K1 − K2 )/2+5Zkey 3 Ykey 2 (4K4 −Ykey K2 )/
486 + 2Zkey 2 Ykey ·[2K4 − Ykey K2 ]/9, f1 = Zkey 3 Ykey 2
(Ykey K2 − 5K4 )/243 + 4Zkey 2 Ykey (Ykey ·K2 − 3K4 )/27 +
Zkey (Ykey K2 − K3 − K4 ), g1 = K1 − K2 + Zkey 3 Ykey 2
(6K4 −Ykey K2 )/1458 + Zkey 2 Ykey (4K4 − Ykey K2 )/27 −
Zkey (Ykey K2 /2 + K4 ).
One can observe that the highest order of x in (A7) is 6 = 2n.
The polynomial is indeed without noniterative solutions.
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Dian Lu (Student Member, IEEE) received the B.S.
degree in electrical engineering and automation from
the Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan, China, in 2017. He is currently working to-
ward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering with
the School of Information Science and Technology,
ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. His re-
search interests include phasor domain protection and
fault location of transmission lines.
Yu Liu (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees in electrical power engineering from
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in
2011 and 2013, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in
electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, in 2017.
He is currently a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor
with the School of Information Science and Technol-
ogy, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. He
has authored or coauthored two book chapters and
more than 60 technical papers. His research interests
include modeling, protection, fault location, and state or parameter estimation
of power systems and power electronic systems.
Authorized licensed use limited to: ABB Power Grids. Downloaded on May 27,2022 at 04:53:09 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1369
Shi Chen received the B.S. degree in electrical engi-
neering from Southeast University, Nanjing, China,
in 2012 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineer-
ing from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai,
China, in 2017. He is currently a Senior Engineer with
State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Company Research
Institute. His research interests include the protection
and control of renewable energy and protection of
high-voltage power systems.
Binglin Wang (Student Member, IEEE) received the
B.S. degree in electrical engineering and intelligent
control from the Xi’an University of Technology,
Xi’an, China, in 2018. He is currently working to-
ward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering with
the School of Information Science and Technology,
ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. His re-
search interests include protection, fault location, and
state estimation of HVAC and HVDC transmission
lines.
Dayou Lu (Student Member, IEEE) received the B.S.
degree in electrical engineering and automation from
the Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan, China, in 2017. He is currently working to-
ward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering with
the School of Information Science and Technology,
ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. His re-
search interests include modeling, protection, and
fault location of transmission lines.