See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/228901568

Numerical relay for overcurrent protection using TMS320F2812

Article · January 2010

CITATIONS READS

9 6,624

4 authors:

Yin Lee Goh Agileswari K. Ramasamy

6 PUBLICATIONS   90 CITATIONS   
Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN)
86 PUBLICATIONS   457 CITATIONS   
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

Farrukh Nagi Aidil AZWIN Zainul Abidin

Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN)
86 PUBLICATIONS   1,876 CITATIONS    24 PUBLICATIONS   228 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Agriculture Produce identification using image processing View project

Design of overcurrent relays View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Agileswari K. Ramasamy on 26 November 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Recent Researches in Circuits, Systems, Electronics, Control & Signal Processing

Numerical Relay for Overcurrent Protection using TMS320F2812

YIN LEE GOH, AGILESWARI K. RAMASAMY, FARRUKH HAFIZ NAGI,
AIDIL AZWIN ZAINUL ABIDIN
Centre for Communication Service Convergence Technologies (CCSCT)
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Universiti Tenaga Nasional
Jalan IKRAM-UNITEN, 43000 Kajang, Selangor
MALAYSIA
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: - Overcurrent protection is a very important element in power systems. This protection is essential in order to
minimize disturbances caused by any failure in the system and to ensure continuous power delivery. Overcurrent
relays are one of the devices used to achieve these purposes. The overcurrent relays initiate the corrective mechanism
to determine the operation time of the relay. Thus, the overcurrent relays must have high reliability and accuracy to
detect any fault currents present and determine the operation time. The entire system will be tremendously affected if
the relays fail to trip or cause mal-tripping. An overcurrent relay is implemented on a high speed and high performance
digital signal processor (DSP). The simulation was carried out using MATLAB/Simulink. Then, the relay was
implemented on TMS320F2812 based on two different methods. In the first method, the relay simulation model from
MATLAB/Simulink is downloaded into the DSP whereas in the second method, code in C is directly written on the
DSP to represent the relay. The relay performance was compared with the IEC 255-3 standard and the outcomes
obtained are encouraging.

Key-Word: - Power system protection, protective relaying, overcurrent protection, digital signal processors

1 Introduction the backbone of any protection strategy such for

Numerical relays are the next generation relays which distribution circuits [12]. The basic principle of the
will soon replace the use of digital relays. The overcurrent protection is when the current flowing into
difference between the numerical relay and digital relay the overcurrent relay exceeds a setpoint amount, the
is the types of processor used in the relay. The relay operates with or without an intended time delay
numerical relay is embedded with digital signal and trips the associated circuit breakers [13]. The time
processor (DSP) whereas a digital relay uses a delay is also known as operation time is computed from
microprocessor [1]. the protection algorithm embedded in the processor.
Numerous researchers have used microprocessor to The DSP embedded in the numerical relay is able to
implement the relay as in [2-7]. The microprocessors provide higher accuracy results for the relay which is
used for digital relays have limited processing capacity important for power system. This processor increases
and memory causing the functionality tends to be the speed of the processing time since the processor has
limited and restricted largely to the protection function higher processing capability. This ensures that the relay
itself [1]. These disadvantages of using microprocessors does not fail to trip and avoids mal-tripping occur in the
can be overcome by using DSP. system. Thus, the implementation of overcurrent relay
The DSP is able to improve the performance of the on DSP board, TMS320F2812 is described in this paper
relay which is very essential in order to meet the in order to investigate the performance of the relay
fundamental protective requirements such as reliability, using this processor.
sensitivity, selectivity and speed [8-9]. The processing The overcurrent relay of inverse definite minimum
carried out using DSP is optimized for the real-time time (IDMT) type is adopted in the system.
signal processing applications [1]. Therefore numerical TMS320F2812 is a high performance processor which
relays are faster. is operating at frequency of 150MHz [14]. The
Numerical relays are used to provide a wide range of improved Harvard architecture of TMS320F2812
protection functions such as overcurrent, directional enables processing of high amount of data. This
overcurrent, undervoltage, overvoltage, distance and processor is also able to provide high speed precision
others [10]. Overcurrent protection is one of the basic calculation for the mathematical algorithm involved in
protective relaying principles [11]. It is considered as the processor [15]. These features are very suitable for

ISBN: 978-960-474-262-2 45
 Recent Researches in Circuits, Systems, Electronics, Control & Signal Processing

implementing the overcurrent relay for real-time control Table 1. Parameters for Different Types of Inverse
applications. Characteristics
This paper describes the implementation of
overcurrent relay using TMS320F2812. Comparison Relay Characteristics Type α C
results between simulation in MATLAB/Simulink and Standard inverse 0.02 0.14
execution on TMS320F2812 based on two different Very inverse 1 13.5
implementation methods are presented in next section. Extremely inverse 2 80
For the first implementation method, the simulation Long inverse 1 120
model from MATLAB/Simulink is directly download
into the DSP whereas for the second method, coding
using C-Language is written in the DSP to represent the
overcurrent relay.
3 Proposed Overcurrent Relay Model
The proposed overcurrent relay is modeled in
MATLAB/Simulink before implemented on
TMS320F2812 as shown in Fig.1. The overcurrent relay
2 Principle of Operation of IDMT type is adopted in the proposed model.
The overcurrent relay of IDMT is the relay which starts In the simulation model, the input currents of sine
to operate after the intended time delay. The time delay waveform with frequency of 50Hz are generated. The
is also known as operation time. The advantage of the inputs are quantized since the operation of numerical
IDMT relay is that the greater the fault currents, the relay is processed in the digital form. The input currents
shorter are their operating time [16]. are sampled at the sampling frequency of 1kHz. The
According to IEC 255-3 standard [17-20], the sampling frequency must be at least twice of the
characteristics of IDMT overcurrent relays are fundamental frequency. This is to ensure that the
represented as in equation (1). Different types of inverse Nyquist criterion is fulfilled so that the aliasing of the
characteristics which are standard inverse, very inverse, input signals are avoided.
extremely inverse and long inverse can be obtained by The total of 20 input current samples is obtained for
varying α and C. each cycle of the fundamental frequency. These samples
are used to compute the root mean square (RMS) value
C (1) of the input current. The RMS computation is necessary
t TMS
(
I
) 1
in order to extract the fundamental component of the
IS input current samples. These calculated RMS currents
are supplied into the overcurrent relay.
where t - relay operation time Then, the RMS values are compared with the
C - constant for relay characteristics setpoint value to obtain the current ratio. In this
TMS - time multiplier setting proposed model, the current setpoint is set as 150A.
I - current detected by relay, I > IS Other setpoint values can be used according to the types
IS - current setpoint of system involved.
α - constant representing inverse time type,
α>0

Fig. 1. The proposed overcurrent relay model

ISBN: 978-960-474-262-2 46
 Recent Researches in Circuits, Systems, Electronics, Control & Signal Processing

Start
characteristics of the IDMT relay. The algorithm
requires current setpoint value, TMS and type of inverse
characteristics to determine the operation time. In this
Current input, I model, very inverse characteristic of IDMT type with
TMS of 0.1 is used to investigate performance of the
overcurrent relay.
Compute Irms
An output tripping signal is generated if the RMS
input current exceeds the setpoint value or in other word
when the current ratio is more than 1. The overcurrent
relay will trip after the intended operation time which is
Compute the current
ratio calculated from the protection algorithm.

4 Hardware Implementation
If Irms > The implementation of the overcurrent relay consists of
setpoint DSP of TMS320F2812 and a computer as the DSP host.
No The block diagram of the hardware implementation is
Yes shown in Fig.3. TMS320F2812 is a high speed
processor which operates at frequency of 150MHz [14].
Start timer
The TMS320F2812 is also equipped large memory
capacity of 18K words on-chip RAM and 64K words
off-chip SRAM memory [14].
The two methods used to implement the relay on
Yes If type = No
standard
DSP required codes. These codes needed to be
inverse complied, linked, downloaded and executed on
TMS320F2812. For the downloaded simulation model,

Yes If type = No DSP Host

Compute
very
operation time
inverse

Compute Compute
operation time operation time

Simulink model of C-Language

overcurrent relay programming of
If operation
time > overcurrent relay
timer
Downloading
Yes
Target support package
Trip Embedded IDE link
Third-party development tools

Implementing
Fig. 2. Flow chart of the protection algorithm of the
overcurrent relay

If the current ratio is more than 1, this indicates that

the RMS input current exceeded the setpoint value.
Hence, the protection algorithm embedded in the relay
starts the process to determine the operation time of the
relay. The flow chart for the protection algorithm of the DSP, TMS320F2812
overcurrent relay is shown in Fig.2.
The protection algorithm is built based on IEC Fig. 3. Hardware implementation of the overcurrent
standard which includes different types of inverse relay on TMS320F2812

ISBN: 978-960-474-262-2 47
 Recent Researches in Circuits, Systems, Electronics, Control & Signal Processing

the code is automatically generated by the Target operating time of the relay for different types of inverse
Support Package MATLAB Package along with Real- characteristic is written.
Time Workshop, Embedded Integrated Development
Environment (IDE) Link and third-party development 1 n 2 (2)
RMS I
tools [21]. Meanwhile for second method, the code is nn 0
written in the processor itself.
The code is downloaded into the processor through where n - number of samples
the DSP host using parallel port connector. The results I - current value
from the execution are viewed from Code Composer
Studio (CCS). CCS provides a single user interface Once the relay setting is selected, the relay trips if
where the contents of the memory saved in the the RMS input current exceeds the current setpoint
TMS320F2812 can be viewed. value. In order to ensure that the relay is operating
correctly, the output tripping signal is also buffered in
the processor. The results of the RMS value, current
5 Implementation on the DSP ratio, operation time and output tripping signal are also
The two different implementation methods are used to viewed from CCS either in the form of graph or value.
implement the overcurrent relay on the DSP, Comparison results of the operation time of the
TMS320F2812. For the first method, the overcurrent overcurrent relay obtained between simulation in
relay simulation model from MATLAB/Simulink is MATLAB/Simulink and execution on TMS320F2812
directly downloaded into the DSP. Meanwhile, for the for two different methods are performed as described in
second method, coding in C-Language for the relay is next section.
written in the DSP.

6 Results
5.1 Simulation Model Different input current values are supplied into the
In the first method, the simulation model from Fig.1 overcurrent relay in order to investigate the accuracy of
which was simulated in MATLAB/Simulink is directly the operation time obtained using different types of
download into the DSP. The relay simulation model implementation methods. The ratio of currents obtained
which uses Simulink blocks is implemented on the DSP from the simulation and execution on the
using this method. This is due to the integration between TMS320F2812 is shown in Table 2. Meanwhile the
MATLAB and Texas Instrument which automate the results from simulation and execution on
process of generating the algorithm code. The results of TMS320F2812 for two different methods are shown in
the RMS value, current ratio and operation time are Table 3.
stored in three different memory locations of the From Table 3, the operation time is obtained for very
processor. After the execution, the results can be viewed inverse type characteristics of the IDMT overcurrent
from the particular memory locations from CCS. relay with TMS of 0.1. The current setpoint of the relay
is 150A. The overcurrent relay will start to compute the
5.2 Using C-Language Programming operation time if the RMS input current exceeds the
For the second method, the proposed overcurrent relay setpoint value. Thus, the processor must be able to
model is written in the C-Language coding rather than operate efficiently in the real-time to detect the input
downloading the simulation model into the DSP. The current value.
program is written in the CCS. The operation time obtained from the simulation and
The sine waveform input current of 50Hz is hardware implementations have small variation as
generated in the programming itself. The input currents shown in Table 3. The C-Language programming which
are sampled at sampling rate of 1kHz. Each of the is embedded in the processor produces closely same
current samples is buffered in the processor. This is to results with the simulation and according to IEC
ensure that the DSP has sufficient time and accurate standard. The operation time obtained from the
number of data for at least a cycle to compute the RMS programming has higher accuracy compared to
values in this real-time operation. The RMS downloaded simulation model.
computation used in the programming is based on Since the overcurrent relay will only compute the
equation (2). operation time when the RMS input exceeds the setpoint
Then, the RMS values are used to calculate the value thus there are no results obtained if the RMS input
current ratio of the input before proceeding to determine current less than the setpoint value. These are shown for
the operation time. The algorithm used to determine the the amplitude input current of 170 A and 210A.

ISBN: 978-960-474-262-2 48
 Recent Researches in Circuits, Systems, Electronics, Control & Signal Processing

Table 2. Ratio of Currents for the Overcurrent Relay

Amplitude Ratio current

input
current Simulation on Hardware implementation
(A) MATLAB/Simulink
Downloaded from C-Language
simulation model programming
170 0.8014 0.8013009 0.8013878
210 0.9899 0.9888265 0.9899496
213 1.004 1.004158 1.004092
227 1.07 1.069787 1.070089
500 2.357 2.357023 2.357022

Table 3. Operation Time of the Overcurrent Relay

Amplitude Operation time (s)

input
current Calculated from Simulation on Hardware implementation
(A) IEC standard MATLAB/Simulink
Downloaded from C-Language
simulation model programming
170 - - - -
210 - - - -
213 329.9419 329.9 324.6737 329.9426
227 19.2614 19.26 19.34454 19.26133
500 0.9948 0.9948 0.994825 0.9948252

For the amplitude input current of 213A is the 7 Conclusions

minimum value that could cause the relay to trip since This paper describes the implementation of overcurrent
the ratio of this input value is 1.004. With this minimum relay on DSP, TMS320F2812. The implementation of
value, the theoretical value for the operation time is the overcurrent relay on DSP improves the performance
329.9419s. Compared to MATLAB/Simulink in the terms of accuracy and speed. From the results
simulation is 329.9s and hardware implementation using obtained for two different implementation methods,
simulation model and programming is 324.6737s and DSP yield similar results compared to IEC 255-3
329.9426s respectively. standard for computing the operation time of the relay.
The memory capacity used in the hardware Both implementation methods are suitable to implement
implementation shows a large difference between the the overcurrent relay. However, implementation using
downloaded simulation model and programming. The coding method used less memory usage. An improved
downloaded simulation model into TMS320F2812 power system protection is achieved by using DSP that
requires large amount of memory to store the code is able to maintain high degree of service reliability to
generated by MATLAB. The memory capacity of the avoid any failure to trip or mal-trip of the relay in the
32-bit processor used by the downloaded model is 3639 power system. Future works which could be performed
addresses and programming is 2681 addresses. By such as implementing different types of protection
writing the algorithm code in the DSP, small memory control algorithm on the DSP for power system
allocation is used. Thus, this definitely increases the protection applications.
speed and reduces the time taken to execute the
protection algorithm embedded in the DSP [22].
Overall, the results obtained from two different References:
methods show that the TMS3202812 are suitable to be [1] Network Protection & Automation Guide, Areva
use as the processor for the overcurrent relay. Since the T&D, 1995.
operation time obtained has small difference at most of [2] T. S. Sidhu, M. S. Sachdev, and H. C. Wood, Design
1.6% compared to the IEC standard. But by using of a microprocessor-based overcurrent relay, IEEE
coding method, less memory is used and results Western Canada Conference on Computer, Power
obtained are faster.

ISBN: 978-960-474-262-2 49
 Recent Researches in Circuits, Systems, Electronics, Control & Signal Processing

and Communications Systems in a Rural [13] J. C. Tan, P. G. McLaren, R. P. Jayasinghe, and P.

Environment, 29–30 May 1991, pp. 41–46. L. Wilson, Software model for inverse time
[3] Mudhafar A. Al-Nema, Sinan M. Bashi, and overcurrent relays incorporating IEC and IEEE
Abdulhadi A. Ubaid, Microprocessor-based standard curves, Canadian Conference on Electrical
overcurrent relays, IEEE Transactions on Industrial and Computer Engineering, Vol.1, 12–15 May
Electronics, Vol.IE-33, No.1, 1986, pp. 49–51. 2002, pp. 37–41.
[4] C. A. Kramer, and W. A. Elmore, Flexible inverse [14] Data Manual: TMS320F2810, TMS320F2811,
overcurrent relaying using a microprocessor, IEEE TMS320F2812, TMS320C2810, TMS320C2811,
Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol.5, No.2, 1990, TMS320C2812 Digital Signal Processors, Texas
pp. 915–923. Instruments, 2010.
[5] T. S. Sidhu, M. S. Sachdev, and H. C. Wood, A [15] K. Shuang, C. H. Chen, N. Xiao and D. Z. Yu, A
computer-aided design tool for developing digital new digital electronic governor based on 32 bits
controllers and relays, IEEE Transactions on DSP for a gas engine, 9th International Conference
Industry Applications, Vol.28, No.6, 1992, pp. on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, 5–8
1376– 1383. December 2006, pp. 1–6.
[6] G. Benmouyal, Design of a digital multi-curve time- [16] Computer representation of overcurrent relay
overcurrent relay, IEEE Transactions on Power characteristics, IEEE Power Engineering Review,
Delivery, Vol.6, No.22, 1991, pp. 656–665. Vol.9, July 1989, pp. 50–51.
[7] M. A. Manzoul, Interrupt-driven microprocessor- [17] IEC Publication 255-3 (1989–05), Single input
based overcurrent relay, IEEE Transactions on energizing quality measuring relays with dependent
Industrial Electronics, Vol. 38, No.1, 1991, pp. 8–9. or independent, 1989.
[8] E. Price, The next step in the evolution of protection [18] Jarm-Long Chung, Ying Lu, Wen-Shiow Kao and
and control implementation, Annual Conference for Chih-Ju Chou, Study of solving the coordination
Protective Relay Engineers, 2010, pp. 1–16. curve intersection of inverse-time overcurrent relays
[9] M. Khederzadeh, Back-up protection of distance in subtransmission systems, IEEE Transactions on
relay second zone by directional overcurrent relays Power Delivery, Vol.23, No.4, 2008, pp. 1780–
with combined curves, IEEE Power Engineering 1788.
Society General Meeting, 2006. [19] F. Wang, and M. H. J. Bollen, Quantification of
[10] Walter A. Elmore, Protective Relaying Theory and transient current signals in the viewpoint of
Applications, ABB Power T&D Company Inc, overcurrent relay, IEEE Power Engineering Society
1994. General Meeting, Vol.4, 2003.
[11] T. Keil, and J. Jager, Advanced coordination [20] A. A. Zainul Abidin, A. Ramasamy, I. Z. Abidin,
method for overcurrent protection relays using and F. H. Nagi, Overcurrent time delay
nonstandard tripping characteristics, IEEE determination using gain scheduled PID controllers,
Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol.23, No.1, 3rd International Conference on Energy and
2008, pp. 52–57. Environment, 2009, pp. 89–93.
[12] D. N. Vishwakarma, and Z. Moravej, ANN based [21] Target Support Package, The MathWorks.
directional overcurrent relay, IEEE/PES [22] J. M. Chang, and E. F. Gehringer, A high-
Transmission and Distribution Conference and performance memory allocator for object-oriented
Exposition, Vol.1, 28 October–2 November 2001, systems, IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol.45,
pp. 29–64. No.3, 1996, pp. 357–366.

ISBN: 978-960-474-262-2 50

View publication stats