UNDERGROUND CABLE FAULT DETECTION USING ARDUINO

A minor project report submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of the degree of
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING
Submitted by

MANIK MADHURI 18211A0269

MADIKONDA MEGHANA 18211A0264
REDDYPALLI SHIVA VAMSHI 18211A0292
NAGA SANTHOSH PESINGU 18211A0277
MADUPATHI SOWMYA 18211A0265

Under the Guidance of

K.MAHESH M.Tech, (Ph D)
Associate Professor

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

B. V. RAJU INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
(UGC-AUTONOMOUS)
Affiliated to JNTUH Hyderabad & Approved by A.I.C.T.E
Accredited by NBA, NAAC
Vishnupur, Narsapur, Medak (Dt.), Telangana 502313
2019-2020
 B. V. RAJU INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
(UGC-AUTONOMOUS)
Affiliated to JNTUH Hyderabad & Approved by A.I.C.T.E
Accredited by NBA, NAAC
Vishnupur, Narsapur, Medak (Dt.), Telangana 502313

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

2019-2020

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the thesis entitled “UNDERGROUND CABLE FAULT

DETECTION” submitted by MANIK MADHURI (18211A0269), MADIKONDA
MEGHANA (18211A0264), REDDYPALLI SHIVA VAMSHI (18211A0292), NAGA
SANTHOSH PESINGU (18211A0277), MADUPATHI SOWMYA (18211A0265)” in partial
fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree in
Electrical & Electronics Engineering by Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad
during the academic year 2018 – 2019. The authentic work carried out by them under my
supervision. To the best of my knowledge, the matter embodied in the thesis has not been
submitted to any other University/Institute for the award of any Degree or Diploma.

Signature of the Supervisor Signature of the Head of the Department

K. Mahesh Dr. K. Rayudu

M.Tech(Ph.D) M.Tech, PhD
Associate Professor Professor
EEE Department EEE Department
 .

.ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The satisfaction and euphoria after the completion of any work would be in-complete
without mentioning the people behind the successful completion of work.

It is indeed a great pleasure to acknowledge and praise our beloved R. Ganesh sir
whose inspiring guidance paved the way for completion of thisproject. It is his constant
encouragement, co-operation and help made this project a great success. The Motivation
and Inspiration he gave is indebted forever.

We wish to express our unfathomable gratitude and sincere thanks to Dr. K.

Rayudu, Professor and Head of the Department for his timely valuablesuggestions in
project work and thanks to Dr. K. Lakshmi Prasad, Principal, B. V. RAJU INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY, Narsapur having provided all facilities, guidelines to complete this
project work successfully.

We would like to thank our project coordinator Mr. K.MAHESH for providing an
endless support and constructive nature in completing our project in a smooth manner.

Finally, it is my pleasure to thank department faculty and friends, all those who have
helped us directly or indirectly during the course of completing our project.
 ABSTRACT

The objective of this errand is to choose the partition of the failure of the underground
connection in the base station using one kilometre of Arduino board. Underground connection
structure is a run of the mill practice in various urban zones. Notwithstanding whether a mistake
occurs for no good reason, around then the fix methodology related to this particular connection
is inconvenient because of not knowing the unmistakable zone of connection dissatisfaction. The
assignment uses the praiseworthy thought of the Ohms law, when a low voltage close to the
completion of the power supply device is associated over a course of action resistor the present
changes depending upon the zone of the Fault the connection. By virtue of a short out (grounded
line), the voltage over the course of action resistors changes as requirements be, by then
commitment to the ADC fabricates the Arduino board to make exact modernized data for the in
kilometre. The endeavour is mounted with an impediment addressing the length of the
connection in KM and making absconds is executed by a ton of switches in each acknowledged
KM to check its precision. Dissatisfaction occurs at a given partition and the specific stage is
appeared on a LCD screen related with the Arduino board.
 INTRODUCTION
The objective of this project is to determine the distance of underground cable fault from base
station in kilometres USING AN Arduino board. The underground cable system is a common
practice followed in many urban areas. While a fault occurs for some reason, at that time the
repairing process related to that particular cable is difficult due to not knowing the exact location
of the cable fault. The proposed system is to find the exact location of the fault.

TYPES OF CABLE FAULTS :

These are the types of Cable Faults Commonly Found in the underground Cables.
 Open circuit fault
 Short circuit or cross circuit fault
 Ground or earth fault

Open circuit fault:

Open circuit fault is a kind of fault that occurs as a result of the conductor breaking or the
conductor being pulled out of its joint. In such instances, current will not flow there at all, as the
conductor is broken (conveyor of electric current).

Short-circuit or cross fault: This kind of fault occurs when the insulation between two cables or
between two multi-core cables gets damaged. In such instances, through the main core the
current will not flow which is connected to load but will flow directly from one cable to another
or from one core or multi-core cable to the other instead. The load will be short circuited.

Ground or earth faults: This kind of faults occurs when the insulation of the cable is damaged.
The current will flow through the faulty cable starts flowing from core of the cable to earth or the
sheath of the cable. Current will not flow through the load.

FAULT LOCATION METHODS:

Fault location methods can be classified as follows:

1. Online method:
To determine the fault points this method utilizes & processes the sampled voltages & current.
Online method for underground cable is less than overhead lines.
2. Offline method:
This method uses special instrument to test out Service of cable in the field. The offline Methods
are as follows,

a) Tracer method:
In this method fault point in the cable lines is detected by walking on ground. The fault point is
indicated from audible signal or electromagnetic signal. It is used to point out fault location very
accurately.

Example:
1) Tracing current method
2) Sheath coil method

b)Terminal method :
This technique is used to detect fault location of cable from one or both ends without tracing.
The general area of fault is located by the use of this method, to expedite tracing on buried cable.

Example:
1) Murray loop method
2) Impulse current method

PROPOSED SYSTEM :
Underground accuse discoverer oversees finding of exact accuse zone from the base station
itself. Connections have some resistance. We are essentially focusing that hindrance. Resistance
can change with respect to the length of the connection. In case the length of the connection is
augmentation, the estimation of the resistance will similarly increase. If any deviation occurs in
the impediment regard, we will call that is accuse point and finding that spot through Arduino
advancement. That accuse point is addresses the standard of detachment (kilometre) from the
base station. This regard appeared by grandstand unit.
 Fig 1.1 Block diagram of Arduino fault detection

Hardware Description:

1. Relay:- Relay is a switch which is operated electrically. An electromagnet is used by many

relays to operate a switch mechanically; however there are other working standards which are
also utilized, for example, solid state relays. The main operation of relay device is to make or
break contact, this making and breaking of contacts is done with the help
of a signal which does not consists of any human involvement in order to ON or OFF. By
applying a low power signal the high powered circuits can be controlled by using relay.
2. Relay Driver:-Relay Driver Circuit is utilized to support or intensify signals from
microcontrollers to control switches in semi-conductor gadgets. Driver circuits take works that
incorporate disconnecting the control circuit and the power circuit, identifying glitches, putting
away and detailing disappointments to the control framework, filling in as an insurance against
disappointment, breaking down sensor flags and making helper voltages. In this project,
ULN2003 is utilized as the transfer driver circuit. It is an integrated circuit which works as the
hand-off driver and lifts up the supply heading off to the hand-off.
 Arduino Nano:- The Arduino (Nano) microcontroller is very simple to use yet it is incredible ne
board PC which has raised significant footing in interest and expert market.
•The Arduino (Nano) is the device which is open-source, which shows equipment is sensible and
changes in programming is also easy.
•The board includes Atmel ATmega328 microcontroller which works at 5 V, RAM of 2KB is
present, and memory of 32KB is also present for putting the projects and EEPROM of 1 Kb for

using the parameters.

•The16 MHz is speed of clock, it means that it performs about 300,000 lines of sources of C
code for every new second.

4. Transformer:-
It is a step down transformer which step downs the voltage from 230v to 12v and its current
rating is up to 1 ampere .

5. Voltage Regulator (IC7805) :-

A voltage regulator is the regulator which is used to have a constant voltage level. In this case,
control voltage is of 5V and 12V are needed. So IC7805 and regulators are to be used to get the
required voltage levels. The primary no indicates the positive (+) supply and the no 05, 12 shows
the desired voltage levels.
Also there is access to three positive terminals of L78xx arrangement.

Working principle :
This project uses a standard concept of Ohms law, i.e., when a low DC voltage is applied
at the feeder end through series resistor (assuming them as cable lines), then the current
would vary depending upon the location of the fault in the cable. In case of a short circuit
(line to ground), the voltage across the series resistors changes which is then fed to an
ADC, to develop a precise digital data that gets displayed on the LCD

Power Supply :
The power supply circuit comprises of step down transformer which converts 230v into

12v. In this circuit 4 diodes (IN4007) are used to convert the supply from AC to DC and
capacitor isconnected to the output of it which filters out harmonics present in DC
supply. The output voltage is not regulated hence voltage regulator IC7805 is used to
regulate the output. There are twoOutputs produced 5V & 12V which are connected
according to requirement.
Working :
In this project we use four sets of four resistors in series which is equivalent to respective cables
i.e R, Y, B, N. The resistances for each phase are shown that are R4 to R7 for neutral R8 to R11
for B phase, R12 to R15 for Y phase, R16 to R19 for R phase as shown in following figure. One
set of resistances for each phase and one for ground. Each resistor shows the equivalent
resistance of cable therefore four resistances for each phase represents kilometre of cable from 1
to 4 kilometre. Three relays are used for each phase and there common points of contact are
connected to ground while NO points are connected to their respective cables i.e R, Y, B.
resistance R4 is supplied through 5v supply via series resistance R20. The common point of is
given to input of ADC of Arduino (Nano) microcontroller.
When any of four switches for each phase are operated they produces fault like LG, LL, 3L, as
per the operations of switch.
When the circuit is turned on the program runs continuously which results in checking of each
phase whether fault has happened or not. when the switch is operated the NO point will be driven
to ground through the common contact point of the particular fault phase relay and develops a
current flow through resistance R20 and respective faulty cable in which switch is operated and
all the resistors present in that branch. Due to this the voltage drop at inbuilt ADC varies which
is depend on current flow and it is inversely proportional to the resistance value which is
showing the length of cable in kilometres. Thevarying voltage drop is send to inbuilt ADC of
Arduino (Nano) microcontroller and as the program gets executed the output is displayed on the
LCD display depending upon the switch operated for fault .If the third switch is operated from
feeder it means that fault is present at 3kilometer from feeder and this is displayed on screen of
LCD.

Arduino code:
Coding of Arduino UNO
// include the library code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins

LiquidCrystallcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);

// define phase control pins

int phase[3]={7, 8, 9};

//*********************************************************
int distance(int inputVoltage){
if(inputVoltage>=890&&inputVoltage<920){
return8;
}
elseif(inputVoltage>=850&&inputVoltage<890){
return6;
}
elseif(inputVoltage>=750&&inputVoltage<850){
return4;
}
elseif(inputVoltage>=600&&inputVoltage<750){
return2;
}

elsereturn0;

}
//*********************************************************

void setup(){
// set up the LCD's number of columns and rows:
lcd.begin(16, 2);

// set pin mode for phase relays

for(int j=0; j <3;j++){
pinMode(phase[j], OUTPUT);
}

void loop(){
digitalWrite(phase[0], HIGH);
delay(500);
int dist1= distance(analogRead(A0));
if(dist1==0){
lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
lcd.write("R: ");
lcd.setCursor(3, 0);
lcd.write("NF ");
}
else{
lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
lcd.write("R: ");
lcd.setCursor(3, 0);
lcd.print(dist1);
lcd.setCursor(4, 0);
lcd.write(" KM");
}
digitalWrite(phase[0], LOW);
//================================================
digitalWrite(phase[1], HIGH);
delay(500);
int dist2= distance(analogRead(A0));
if(dist2==0){
lcd.setCursor(8, 0);
lcd.write("Y: ");
lcd.setCursor(11, 0);
lcd.write("NF ");
}
else{
lcd.setCursor(8, 0);
lcd.write("Y: ");
lcd.setCursor(11, 0);
lcd.print(dist2);
lcd.setCursor(12, 0);
lcd.write(" KM");
}
digitalWrite(phase[1], LOW);
//=================================================
digitalWrite(phase[2], HIGH);
delay(500);
int dist3= distance(analogRead(A0));
if(dist3==0){
lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
lcd.write("G: ");
lcd.setCursor(3, 1);
lcd.write("NF ");
}
else{
lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
lcd.write("G: ");
lcd.setCursor(3, 1);
lcd.print(dist3);
lcd.setCursor(4, 1);
lcd.write(" KM");
}
digitalWrite(phase[2], LOW);
}

ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS

Advantages:

1. Low Maintains of task.

2. Applicable to all types of cables ranging from 1kv to 500kv.
3. Less utilization of intensity.

Limitations :

1. The Arduino and other part require 5V DC Supply..

2. Relay requires 12V dc..

Applications:
1. Industrial applications
 2. Ground cable fault detection applications
3. Electrical cable fault detection applications.

Chapter 6: CONCLUSION:
Conclusion:
In this manner the undertaking on Underground cable fault recognition utilizing Arduino was
done and the separation of the fault from feeder starting end in kilometres was shown for the
three individual phases R, Y and B. Circuit can be tried with various resistor esteems to
reproduce different fault conditions In this task issues up to a separation of 4km can be detected.
When the blame changes are worked to blame condition then the stage relating to that specific
switch is considered as the flawed stage. So the broken area can without much of a stretch be
found.

THANK YOU