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Published in IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution

Received on 17th April 2008
Revised on 18th October 2008
doi: 10.1049/iet-gtd:20080190

ISSN 1751-8687

Optimal feature selection for classication of

power quality disturbances using wavelet
packet-based fuzzy k-nearest neighbour
algorithm
B.K. Panigrahi V.R. Pandi
Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT, Delhi 110016, India
E-mail: bkpanigrahi@ee.iitd.ac.in

Abstract: The authors present an automatic classication of different power quality (PQ) disturbances using
wavelet packet transform (WPT) and fuzzy k-nearest neighbour (FkNN) based classier. The training data
samples are generated using parametric models of the PQ disturbances. The features are extracted using
some of the statistical measures on the WPT coefcients of the disturbance signal when decomposed upto
the fourth level. These features are given to the fuzzy k-NN for effective classication. The genetic algorithm-
based feature vector selection is done to ensure good classication accuracy by selecting 16 better features
from all 96 features generated from the WPT coefcients. The necessity of selecting the best feature is to
remove the redundant or irrelevant features, which may reduce the performance of the classication. It also
reduces the computation time since it uses only 16 features instead of 96 features. The experimental analysis
for the validation of the proposed algorithm is carried out in two stages. At the rst stage, the sample data
set is generated by varying the parameters in models in regular intervals and the proposed algorithm is
applied to select the best features to obtain high accuracy. In the second stage, a new data set is generated
by choosing the parameter values, which are not used in the rst case and used to test the accuracy of the
classier with the same selected features as in stage one. The noisy and practical signals are also considered
for the classication process to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

1 Introduction failure or mal-operation of the electrical equipments. Hence,

Recently, power quality (PQ) has become a signicant issue
for both utilities and customers. PQ issues [1] and the
resulting problems are the consequences of the increasing
use of solid state switching devices, nonlinear and power
electronically switched loads, unbalanced power systems,
lighting controls, computer and data processing equipment
as well as industrial plant rectiers and inverters. These
electronic type loads cause quasi-static harmonic dynamic
voltage distortions, inrush, pulse type current phenomenon
with excessive harmonics and high distortion. A PQ problem
usually involves a variation in the electric service voltage or
current, such as voltage dips and uctuations, momentary
interruptions, harmonics and oscillatory transients causing
the performance and life expectancy from the electrical
equipments may differ from the actual design values.
In order to improve electric PQ, the sources and causes of
such disturbances must be known before appropriate
mitigating action can be taken. However, in order to
determine the causes and sources of disturbances, one must
have the ability to detect and localise these disturbances. In
most of the recent reported literatures, researchers have
attempted to use efcient and appropriate signal processing
and computational intelligence techniques for the
detection, localisation and classication of PQ disturbances.
Wavelet transform (WT) [2 4] is widely used for the PQ
assessment. Some of the reported works [5 10] at an early

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stage explores the applicability of WT in analysing non-
stationary signals in power systems. Wavelet-based online
disturbances detection for PQ applications are discussed in
[11, 12]. Some of the recent literatures [13, 14] further
emphasise the wide application of WT for the PQ analysis.
Although WT has been extensively used for detection of
PQ disturbances, but in many of the cases the effect of
electrical noise is not adequately considered. A de-noising
scheme [15] is proposed for enhancing wavelet-based PQ
monitoring system. In [16] detection and classication of
PQ disturbances is presented where WT is combined with
short-time correlation transform.
In order to identify the type of disturbances present in the
power signal more effectively, several authors have presented
different methodologies based on combination of WT and
articial neural network (ANN). Using the properties of
WT, the features of the disturbance signal are extracted at
different resolution levels and then the features are trained
with different ANN algorithms. By this method, it is
possible to extract important information from a
disturbances signal and determine what type of
disturbances has caused a PQ problem to occur. In [17,
18], the application of neural networks to perform
automated waveform identication was discussed in detail.
In [19, 20], the powerful wavelet multi-resolution analysis
method is applied for signal decomposition and the PQ
events are classied based on standard deviation and root
mean square value. In [21], the author has demonstrated
the classication of seven types of PQ events by using
wavelets and probabilistic neural network (PNN). Energy
distribution at 13 decomposition levels of wavelet and time
duration of disturbances are taken as features and these 14
features are applied to PNN for classication. In [22], a self
organising learning array system based on WT for
classication of seven types of PQ problems has been
proposed. Here, 11 decomposition levels of wavelets are used
for the classication. Also, 22 types of wavelets are tested to
get effective classication by a particular type of wavelet.
Wavelet packet transform (WPT) has been widely used for
machine fault diagnosis [2325], biomedical signal analysis
[26] and also to the PQ analysis [27]. In this paper, we have
tried to decompose the PQ disturbances signals up to the
fourth level and extracted the useful statistical features for each
level. The classication of different types of PQ disturbances
Figure 1 Tree structure of the wavelet packet decomposition at level 4
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are carried out using fuzzy k-nearest neighbour (FkNN)
algorithm [28]. To improve the classication accuracy and to
nd the optimal feature set, genetic algorithms (GAs) are
used. The GAs are search algorithm based on the concept of
natural selection [29, 30] and are used for many nonlinear
optimisation problems. GAs are exploratory search methods
based on mechanics of selection and survival of the ttest.
2 Wavelet packet feature
extraction
Analysing the PQ data using WPT involves three steps,
selection of the type of mother wavelet, the order of mother
wavelet and the level of decomposition. A number of wavelet
families with unique properties have been proposed in the
signal processing literature, but the most appropriate family is
generally application-dependant. After a thorough literature
review, it was found that the fourth-order Daubechies wavelet
(dB4) yields the best performance for analysing PQ
disturbances. Thus, in the proposed work the fourth-order
Daubechies wavelet was chosen as the mother wavelet for the
analysis. The selection of the level of decomposition depends
on the desired frequency resolution. To obtain the best
frequency resolution, the fourth level decomposition was
chosen as illustrated in Fig. 1.
The wavelet packet approach becoming popular for extracting
the useful features, because it is like a generalisation of wavelet
decomposition, which gives a richer range of possibilities for
signal analysis. In wavelet analysis, a signal is split into
approximation and detail coefcients by passing it through
low-pass and high-pass lters respectively in the rst level of
decomposition. The approximation is then split into a
second-level approximation and detail, and the process is
repeated. In wavelet packet analysis, a signal is split into an
approximation and a detail in the rst level. Then in the
second level both detail and approximation are decomposed
further which forms binary tree like structure as shown in
Fig. 1. This process is recursively applied on both detail and
approximation upto level k, which depends on frequency
resolution. For each level j [ k, there are 2j number of nodes
available after wavelet packet decomposition. In general
notation W pj denotes the pth node occurring at the jth level.
In kth
k1
level wavelet packet decomposition there are more
than 22 different ways to encode the signal. For instance,
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Figure 2 Implementation of the wavelet packet transforms

wavelet packet analysis allows the representation of original decomposition level. Here N is the number of coefcients
signal W 00 in the form of W 01 W 22 W 63 W 14
4 W4 .
15
in each decomposed data. The term E(Dij 2 mi)k in
This is an example of a representation that is not possible skewness and kurtosis calculation is the expected value of
with ordinary wavelet analysis. Choosing one out of all the quantity, also called as kth moment about the mean.
these possible encodings presents an interesting problem. Thus in the present case the decomposition of the signal
In this wavelet packet analysis, we use the Shannon upto fourth level yields 16 different nodes corresponding to
entropy-based criterion to select the most suitable different frequency sub-bands. Selecting the above
decomposition of a given signal. The implementation of mentioned features for each node we will obtain the feature
complete wavelet packet analysis upto the second level vector of length 96. The feature vector is denoted by
using HP and LP lter banks is shown in Fig. 2.
Feature [ED1 ED2    EDl s1 s2    sl m1 m2 . . . ml
KRT1 KRT2    KRTl SK1 SK2    SKl
3 Feature extraction ENT1 ENT2    ENTl ] (7)
The coefcient Dij at fourth decomposition level is used to
extract the features. Statistical features like energy, standard
deviation, mean, kurtosis, skewness and Shannon entropy
of the decomposition coefcients Dij are calculated by 4 Feature selection by GA
using the following equations GAs are stochastic search algorithm by which we can explore
the search space to obtain optimal solution. They operate
N 
X 
 2 on string structures called chromosomes, typically a
Energy EDi Dij  i 1, 2 . . . l (1)
j1
concatenated list of binary digits representing the encoding
!1=2 of the control parameters of a given problem. It works with
N  2
1 X a population of individuals and the decisions taken are
Standard deviation si Dij  mi , based on probabilistic rules. The PQ disturbance signal is
N  1 j1
decomposed upto fourth level using wavelet packet
i 1, 2 . . . l (2)

1X N
Mean mi D i 1, 2 . . . l (3)
N j1 ij
 4
E Dij  mi
Kurtosis KRTi i 1, 2 . . . l (4)
s4i
 3
E Dij  mi
Skewness SKi i 1, 2 . . . l (5)
s3i
X
N   Figure 3 Feature selection by GA
Entropy ENTi  Dij2 log Dij2 i 1, 2 . . . l
j1
a Chromosome structure for selecting the optimal features at
(6) fourth level
b Two point crossover operation
where i 1, 2, . . . , l is the number of nodes at the fourth c Mutation operation

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Figure 4 Power quality waveforms for

a Voltage sag
b Voltage swell
c Harmonic distortion
d Flicker
e Oscillatory transient
f Sag with harmonics
g Swell with harmonics
h Interruption
i Spike
j Notch

decomposition. The feature vector is formed by applying
some of the statistical measures like energy, entropy,
standard deviation and so on, the resulting WPT
coefcients. The classication process using all 96 feature
vectors may lead to less accuracy, since some of the features
may have an overlapping nature between two classes, which
leads to misclassication. In this work, we have tried to
nd the optimal feature vector by applying GA that leads
to good classication accuracy. The GA encoding schema
of chromosome is made up of a binary string, which

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represents the selection of one of the feature from the
available six features in all 16 nodes. It leads us to have 16
control parameters in the chromosome string with each
parameter represented by 3 bits as shown in Fig. 3a. While
decoding of these chromosome structures, we employed
discrete type of decoding schema as mentioned in [29].
During the search process, the tness of each chromosome
is evaluated using FkNN classication accuracy so that our
objective, become maximisation of classication accuracy.
Generally, GAs consists of three basic operations, namely
reproduction, crossover and mutation [30]. Reproduction
comprises forming a new population, usually with the same
total number of chromosomes, by selecting from members
of the current population following a particular scheme. The
higher the tness, the more likely it is that the chromosome
will be selected for the next generation. There are several
strategies for selecting the individuals, example roulette-
wheel selection, ranking methods and tournament selection.
Here we use tournament selection. In tournament selection,
the size of the participant in the tournament n is chosen
rst. The n individuals are selected at random from the
current population and the better solution among the n is
selected and inserted into the new population. Then another
n individual is selected randomly and the better one is
inserted into the new population. This procedure is repeated
until the mating pool is lled. The best solution in the
current population may be inserted more than once.
Similarly, the worst solution in the current population may
have disappeared. In this manner, any solution in the
current population may have zero, one, two or many copies
in the new population.
The crossover and mutation operations are performed after
reproduction. The crossover operator is mainly responsible
for the global search property of the GA. There are many
ways to do the crossover operation, like single point
crossover, two point crossover and uniform crossover. In
this work two point crossover is considered. Two parent
strings are selected from the population at random. In the
two-point crossover the crossover points are generated
randomly between string lengths. The information between
these two crossover points is exchanged and thus the two
child strings are created. This is shown in Fig. 3b. Two
child strings are then generated from the parent strings in
the process of crossover by complementing the child strings
at selected bit positions in order to exchange the already
existing information.
Mutation is then applied on some of the strings to introduce
new information in the mating pool, with small probability as
shown in Fig. 3c. The bitwise mutation operator changes

Table 1 Equations and parameter variations for PQ signals

PQ disturbances Model Parameters variation

voltage sag x(t) A(1 2 a(u(t 2 t1) 2u(t 2 t2))) sin(vt) 0.05  a  0.85
t1, t2 , u(t) 1 if t 0, T  t2 2 t1  7T
0 if t , 0
voltage swell x(t) A(1 a(u(t 2 t1) 2u(t 2 t2))) sin(vt) 0.05  a  0.8
t1, t2 , u(t) 1 if t 0, T  t2 2 t1  7T
0 if t , 0
harmonics x(t) A(a1 sin(vt) a2 sin(2vt) a3 sin(3vt) a5 a1 1.0,
sin(5vt) a7 sin(7vt)) a2 a7 (0.0 2 0.3)
icker x(t) A(1 af sin(bfvt)) sin(vt) 0.01  af  0.25
2 Hz  ff  8 Hz
oscillatory x(t) A(sin(vt) b eg (tt1 ) sin(vtr(t 2 t1))) 22  b  2,
transient 50  g  100,
500 Hz  ftr  1500 Hz
sag with x(t) A(12 a(u(t 2 t1) 2u(t 2 t2))) (a1 sin(vt) a2 a1 1.0,
harmonics sin(2vt) a3 sin(3vt) a5 sin(5vt) a7 sin(7vt)) 0.0  a2 , a3, a5 and a7  0.3
0.05  a  0.85
T  t2 2 t1  7T
swell with x(t) A(1 a(u(t 2 t1) 2u(t 2 t2))) (a1 sin(vt) a2 a1 1.0,
harmonics sin(2vt) a3 sin(3vt) a5 sin(5vt) a7 sin(7vt)) 0.0  a2 , a3, a5 and a7  0.3
0.05  a  0.8
T  t2 2 t1  7T
interruption x(t) A(12 a(u(t 2 t1) 2u(t 2 t2))) sin(vt) 0.88  a  1.0
T  t2 2 t1  7T

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from 1 to 0 and vice versa. The mutation operation helps to keep
the diversity in the population. In order to maintain better
solutions during the crossover and mutation process, there is
some probability called crossover probability and mutation
probability. Usually, crossover probability is chosen between
0.6 and 0.9 and mutation probability is taken between 0.001
and 0.1. In order to maintain the best chromosomes elitism is
performed. It always maintains the best chromosome called
elites in the mating pool.
where the denominator is a normalising factor. The value of
scaling factor m should be chosen in order to have better
inuence of distance samples. As the value of m approaches
innity, the result of the classication is same as that of the
crisp k-NN algorithm result. Here in this paper, we used
m 2, so as to represents the Euclidean distance between
the samples as used in [28].

6 Results and discussion

5 FkNN classier
Machine learning techniques like support vector machines as
well as various types of neural networks has been applied to
classify the PQ event classication problem. In this paper,
we tried to apply the well-known classier called FkNN
algorithm originally proposed by James M. Keller et al.
[28]. The nearest neighbour algorithm works to nd a
correlation between unknown samples and training
samples. The training samples are denoted by n
dimensional numeric attributes. The k-nearest neighbour
(k-NN) algorithm searches the k training samples that are
adjacent to the unknown sample given for the classication
process. The closeness is measured in terms of Euclidean
distances and can be calculated as
s models are given in Table 1. Here, the parameter a
X n  2
D X , Y xi  yi
i1
6.1 Data preparation
The wavelet-based FkNN classier presented in this work is
designed to identify ten types of PQ events including voltage
sag, voltage swell, momentary interruption, harmonic
distortion, voltage icker, oscillatory transient, sag with
harmonics, swell with harmonics, spike and notch.
Generating the sampled signals of these types from
parametric models was advantageous in getting a wide
range of signals in a controlled manner. The parametric
data set is prepared with a sampling frequency of 3.2 kHz.
The data length of each class of disturbance is 12 cycles.
The typical disturbance waveforms of these kinds are
shown in Fig. 4. The detailed summary of all types of
disturbances along with the variation in parameters and
(8)

The unknown sample is classied according to the most

occurring class among the kNNs. In a special case if k 1,
it simply classies the unknown sample to its nearest
neighbour. The k values are chosen as odd numbers in the
case of binary classication, so as to avoid the tied votes.
The advantage of this algorithm over the neural-based
classication schemes is that it does not generate the pre-
dened model during training. But it will take more
computation time if the number of training samples is
much higher because each time it has to compute the
distance vector. So it is better to use the k-NN algorithm
when the number of training samples are less. The k-NN
algorithm was modied using fuzzy logic in order to get
better classication. The drawbacks in k-NN like precision
and correctness during tie condition are overcome by
FkNN algorithm. Moreover, this FkNN algorithm is
getting idea from Bayes rule, which provides optimal
solution to the classication problem, that is, it gives the
highest assurance that the classication will be correct.

The membership value of sample x in class i is given by

 2=(m1)

Pk  
u
j1 ij 1=  x  x j
ui (x)  2=(m1)
for all i (9)
Pk   Figure 5 Flowchart for the GA-based feature vector
j1 1=x  xj 
selection

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Table 2 Optimally selected features by GA

Node Selected feature Node Selected feature Node Selected feature Node Selected feature
0 mean 4 kurtosis 8 energy 12 standard deviation
1 kurtosis 5 standard deviation 9 kurtosis 13 energy
2 skewness 6 entropy 10 energy 14 standard deviation
3 mean 7 kurtosis 11 mean 15 kurtosis

Table 3 Comparison of classication accuracy results

Case Energy Entropy Energy and All (96) GA selected

(16) (16) entropy (32) feature (16)
I. pure signal (10-fold avg) 97.90 97.90 98.08 99.03 99.3857
II. intermediate signal 93.3383 93.7424 95.7962 94.3816 96.2703
III. intermediate signal with different 94.17 94.83 96.06 94.62 97.81
magnitude and same point on wave
IV. intermediate signal with same magnitude 93.45 93.27 95. 74 93.64 96.94
and different point on wave

represents the level of sag or swell in the rst two types of sag with harmonics 170, swell with harmonics 160,
disturbances. The unit step function u(t) in the whole table momentary interruption 52, spike 168 and notch 168)
provides the duration of disturbances present in the pure according to the range of parameter variation in each class.
sine waveform. During the generation of the disturbance We are also interested in generating other data sets called
signal from the parametric model, the value of a and the intermediate signals for testing the algorithm after selecting
position of u(t) has been varied suitably, so that a large the best features by GA. This intermediate data set is
number of signals can be obtained with varying magnitude prepared corresponding to the parameter values that are not
(by changing a) on different points on the wave (by used for generating the rst data set.
changing the parameters t1 and t2) and the duration of the
disturbance (t2 2 t1). The point on the wave is the instant The wavelet packet algorithm is applied to decompose the
on the sinusoid when a disturbance begins and is controlled original signal up to fourth level of decomposition. In this
by the position of the unit step function u(t). As the real
work, we used Shannon entropy-based wavelet packet
PQ disturbance signals may have any point on the wave decomposition that is available in the MATLAB Wavelet
which is beyond control, hence we have generated a variety toolbox [31]. The WPT decomposes the signal into 16 equal
of disturbances having different points on the wave
duration of disturbance and magnitudes. The harmonic
signal consists of a combination of second-, third-, fth-
and seventh-order harmonics. The icker signal is
generated by varying the icker frequency ff and its
amplitude af . Oscillatory transient is denoted by its
amplitude b, frequency ftr and the inverse of the time
constant of decay g. The signal having both sag and swell
along with harmonics are considered as separate classes in
our study. Finally, the momentary interruption with
parameter a is taken for varying the amplitude during
interruption. The remaining two PQ events considered in
this paper are spike and notch, which are of short duration
as compared to sag or swell.

Using the parametric model of each event we generated

totally 1147 different cases (sag 85, swell 80,
Harmonics 64, icker 68, oscillatory transient 132, Figure 6 Classication accuracy for ve types of analysis

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parts of 100 Hz at the fourth level. The statistical features like the
energy, standard deviation, mean, kurtosis, skewness and
entropy corresponding to all the 16 nodes present in the
fourth level and is carried out to form the feature vector set. In
this way we obtain 96 features (6  16) corresponding to each
signal. After calculating the features for the complete data
covering all types of disturbance, the feature vectors are
normalised between [0, 1] by taking the minimum and
maximum values of the corresponding feature vectors as the
base. Normalisation is one of the important steps of pre-
processing of the data before classication by any of the
classication algorithms involving neural networks or distance
measurements such as nearest neighbour classication [32].
This vector normalisation has been done to avoid the inuence
of high-ranging feature vectors over lower ranging ones.
6.2 Results of GA-based selection
The complete simulation study was carried out using
MATLAB 7.0 in IBM 3.0 GHz personal computer with
256 MB of RAM. The best feature vector selection is
carried out by GA initially. This is done by combining all
the data sets into a single data set and making it 10-fold,
so that each fold contains samples of all classes. Now the

Table 4 Comparison of classication accuracy results for intermediate signal

Class Type of Energy Entropy Energy and entropy All (96) GA selected feature
number disturbances (16) (16) (32) (16)
1 voltage sag 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 97.647
2 voltage swell 97.647 97.647 97.647 94.118 94.118
3 harmonics 95.833 93.75 95.833 100.00 100.00
4 icker 72.222 89.683 84.127 68.254 83.248
5 oscillatory transient 91.406 90.625 92.969 98.438 94.531
6 sag with harmonics 100.00 97.778 100.00 97.222 96.10
7 swell with 92.941 92.941 92.941 94.118 97.059
harmonics
8 interruption 83.333 75.00 94.444 91.667 100.00
9 spike 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
10 notch 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
average 93.3383 93.7424 95.7962 94.3816 96.2703

Table 5 Comparison of classication accuracy results for noisy signal

Class number Type of disturbances 40 dB noise 35 dB noise 30 dB noise 25 dB noise 20 dB noise

1 voltage sag 100.0000 92.7928 93.2830 83.0189 56.3025
2 voltage swell 100.0000 100.0000 95.8506 85.9504 74.0000
3 harmonics 91.3580 83.7838 81.8919 81.8182 85.2272
4 icker 100.0000 100.0000 100.0000 96.1538 98.7500
5 oscillatory transient 97.7143 93.7107 91.8333 96.4497 94.7712
6 sag with harmonics 100.0000 100.0000 99.5516 100.0000 100.0000
7 swell with harmonics 98.5437 100.0000 100.0000 99.5516 100.0000
8 interruption 100.0000 100.0000 100.0000 86.4407 81.5384
9 spike 87.0466 84.9785 86.8113 98.9899 100.0000
10 notch 84.9741 84.4221 86.0226 98.1651 100.0000
average 95.9637 93.9688 93.5244 92.6538 89.0589

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chromosomes are encoded such that it contains the
information of which feature should be selected in each
node as explained previously. The objective of the GA is
maximising the 10-fold average accuracy. The population
size and number of generation is selected as 20 and 40,
respectively. The crossover and mutation probability of GA
is selected as 0.8 and 0.1, respectively. The owchart for
selecting the best feature by GA is shown in Fig. 5.
The best features for all the 16 nodes are reported in
Table 2. The classication accuracy obtained by the
proposed method using the best selected features is
reported in Table 3. In this table, for a comparative study
the classication accuracy using only energy or entropy as a
feature for all the 16 nodes is also reported. It is observed
that either energy or entropy as a feature for the
classication purpose nearly yields the same percentage of
average accuracy. When both energy and entropy are
selected as features thereby increasing the feature dimension
to 32, it is observed that the average accuracy increases. If
Figure 7 Laboratory setup to acquire practical PQ data
Table 6 Comparison of classication accuracy results for practical data
Class number Type of disturbances Training/testing data set
1 voltage sag 50/30
2 voltage swell 50/30
3 harmonics 50/30
4 icker 50/30
5 oscillatory transient 50/30
6 sag with harmonics 50/30
7 swell with harmonics 50/30
8 interruption 50/30
9 spike 50/30
10 notch 50/30
average
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one will select all the features having the feature set
dimension 96, the overall average accuracy further increases.
But the computation time becomes more because of the
larger dimension of the feature set. In the rst case, pure
signal data set is considered and the 10-fold average of the
classication accuracy is presented in Table 3. In this case,
the training as well as testing data set contains the feature
set pertaining to the disturbance signals having different
magnitude, durations and points on the wave. A bar chart
is provided for the classication accuracy of each individual
class in Fig. 6. In the second case, the original data set is
considered as training data. The intermediate signals are
generated with different disturbance magnitudes, duration
and point on wave values that are different from those used
for generating the training signal. The features extracted
from these intermediate signals are considered as testing
data and the classication accuracy is reported in the same
Table 3, case II. The detailed results showing the
individual class accuracy for these intermediate signals is
reported in Table 4. However, to show the performance of
Figure 8 Transient signal captured and its detection using
WPT
a Signal
b Wavelet packet decomposition level 1 (D1)
Accuracy with GA selected feature (16)
96.67
100.00
86.67
100.00
93.33
100.00
100.00
100.00
93.33
93.33
96.33
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the proposed algorithm, case II is again subdivided into two
different cases. In case III, we have considered the
intermediate signals generated with the different
disturbance magnitudes (a) and the same point on wave as
considered in the generation of training data. Case IV
describes the classication accuracy of the proposed
algorithm with intermediate signals generated with same
disturbance magnitudes (as considered in the training data
preparation) but with different points on the wave. It is
observed that the optimal features selected for the 16 nodes
of the WPT gives a comparatively better result for the
classication of PQ disturbances. Further, it is observed
that the execution time for the classication of 1-fold data
(training: 1000 data and testing: 100 data) is 0.3317 s for
all 96 features and 0.0633 s for 16 selected features.
6.3 Results of performance under noisy
environment
In an electrical power distribution network, the practical data
consists of noise; therefore the proposed approach has to be
analysed under noisy environment. Gaussian white noise is
widely considered in the research of PQ issues. We have
obtained the noisy signals for all the ten classes having
different signal to noise ratio (SNR). The features of the
noisy signal are extracted using WPT as described in the
previous section. Features extracted for noisy data
consisting of SNR of 20, 30 and 40 dB and tested with 20,
25, 30, 35 and 40 dB noise levels. The classication
accuracy for this case is reported in Table 5.
6.4 Results of accuracy for practical data
In this section, we have demonstrated the applicability of the
proposed technique to the practical data. The PQ data are
obtained from the laboratory. The laboratory setup is given
in Fig. 7. The electrical system consists of a source (400 V),
which supplies power through a prototype model of a
transmission line. The loads are of linear (static PQ load)
and nonlinear (converter load) nature. Different PQ
disturbances are simulated by making faults in the line,
additional load switching, capacitor switching and varying
the ring angle of the converter load. A transient signal
obtained by capacitor switching is presented in Fig. 8 along
with the detection of this event using WPT. The terminal
voltage waveforms are acquired through voltage sensors
(Lv-20-P). Output of the voltage sensor is limited between
+10 V to provide compatibility with subsequent signal
processing systems. These signals are captured by using
dSPACE 1104 kit and monitored in computer. The
sampling frequency is set as 3.2 kHz. The classication
result of the practical data is reported in Table 6.
7 Conclusion
This paper presents the application of WPT to extract the
useful features from the PQ disturbances signals. FkNN
IET Gener. Transm. Distrib., 2009, Vol. 3, Iss. 3, pp. 296 306
doi: 10.1049/iet-gtd:20080190
www.ietdl.org
algorithm is used for automatic classication of the
disturbances using the feature sets obtained thereby. The
wavelet packet algorithm along with the FkNN classier
can be used as an efcient tool to recognise the type of
power disturbance occurring at a particular point of time.
The implementation of GA-based feature selection makes
the classication accuracy better. The proposed algorithm
has been tested with the data obtained from the parametric
model of the PQ disturbances, noisy PQ data and the data
set obtained from the laboratory setup.
8 Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the nancial support of
Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India for
the research project SR/S3/EECE/46/2007.
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