Electric Machines and Power Systems, 27:453–464, 1999

Copyright °c 1999 Taylor & Francis, Inc.

0731-356X / 99 $12.00 + .00

M icroprocessor-Based Protection System for

Three-Phase Induction Motors

WAEL A. FARAG
Electrical Engineering Dept.
Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

MAHMOUD I. KAMEL
Electrical and Electronics Engineering
High Institute of Technology
Benha, Egypt

Induction motors are widely used in industry because of their rigidity and
speed-control exibility. Therefore, the problem of induction motor protection
attracted many researchers. The digital protection techniques that are used in
digital relays provide better performance and higher accuracy than the conven-
tional electromagnetic and solid-state relays. This paper tackles the problem
of three-phase induction-motor overall protection using digital protection algo-
rithms. A stand-alone, microcontroller-based digital protector is designed and
implemented. Many algorithms are developed to realize the various functions
of the protector. Mc-8031 assembly-language procedures are coded to activate
the hardware of the protector. Moreover, the electrical and thermal behavior
of the induction motor is studied. The implemented protection system can be
programmed to suit a wide range of induction motor sizes, and to monitor
the motor parameters during its operation and after a fault occurrence through
seven-segment display units. The relay protection functions that are considered
in this implementation are overload, over-temperature, supply under-voltage,
supply over-voltage, unbalance of supply-voltages, phase reversal, phase loss,
heavy over-current, excess ground-current, unbalance of supply-currents, and
repeated startings.

1 Introduction
Properly designed microprocessor relays and protection systems are in several ways
superior to the electromechanical and solid-state relays. If we are concerned with
the economic consideration, the cost of the digital hardware has decreased and
the cost of conventional relays has increased during the last two decades. Of course,
this takes no account of the software development costs for a digital relay. Although
these costs are high, they will be distributed over many similar units. Furthermore,
the digital relay, being a programmable device, can be used to perform multiple
functions.
The digital protection of an electrical power apparatus has been an active area
of research over the past 20 years [1,2]. The research outcomes are being used

Manuscript received in Žnal form on March 23, 1998.

Address correspondence to W .A. Farag.

453
454 W. A. Farag and M. I. Kamel

in some of the digital relay designs developed in recent years [1]. A considerable
amount of research has been done on digital protection of motors. In [2], three
diŒerent designs of digital protection systems for motors are described. Lacroix
and Clegg [3] have developed the IM 7990 microprocessor-based motor protection
relay. Also, many of these systems are now commercially available [4–6]. This paper
presents a further step toward the protection of three-phase induction motors with
full protection coverage, reasonable cost, and good performance.

2 Induction M otor Protection

During the operation of three-phase induction motors, several types of failures or
abnormal conditions can occur. The proposed digital protector deals with the most
important types of these failures, which are summarized as follows:
· Reversed phase-sequence and phase loss: If the phase sequence of the supply-
voltage changes or a phase gets lost, the relay disconnects the motor instan-
taneously.
· Heavy over-current: Any current detected over the starting-current of the
motor is considered an abnormal condition, and the motor is disconnected
instantaneously.
· Over-voltage, under-voltage, and unbalance of supply-voltages: Under these
abnormal conditions, the motor will be disconnected if endured for more
than a prespeciŽed duration.
· Over-load: Any detected current between the full-load current of the motor
and its starting current is considered an over-load. The relay will disconnect
the motor according to certain characteristics. This feature includes stalling
protection.
· Unbalance of phase-currents: The motor will be disconnected because of this
abnormal condition after a prespeciŽed period, depending on the amount of
unbalance.
· Ground fault: If the earth leakage current exceeds a certain limit, the motor
will be disconnected because of an internal abnormal condition.
· Excessive repeated starting: Each time the motor is started, a certain amount
of heat is generated in the motor. By allowing an excessive number of starts,
damage can occur in the rotor because of the heating eŒects. A new start
is prevented by the protector if the number of starts in a speciŽed period
exceeds a certain limit.
To protect the induction-motor from the previous abnormal conditions, some mea-
surements must be obtained continuously during its operation. These measured
signals are transmitted to the relaying system to detect the occurrence of any fault.
These signals and their required transducers are listed below:
· The instantaneous value of each phase-current and the ground-current using
electronic-current transducers based on Hall eŒect from RS products.
· The instantaneous value of each phase-voltage using potential transformers.
· The stator temperature using thermocouple transducer. This transducer has
an iron-constantan junction and works in a useful temperature linear range
( 184° C to 760° C). This transducer is buried in the stator windings of the
motor.
 Microprocessor-Based Protection System for Induction Motors 455

3 T hermal-Limit Curve
The thermal limit U of a motor is the maximum period that the motor can with-
stand at a deŽnite value of motor current [7]. The thermal limit is related to the
motor parameters according to the following equation:
u* C T
U = , (1)
I 12 * R

where
u is the maximum temperature limit of the motor in ° C,
C T is the thermal capacity (watt-sec/ ° C),
I 1 is the full-load current of the motor in amps,
R is the equivalent resistance of the motor windings in ohms.

Equation (1) represents the maximum period U in seconds that the motor can oper-
ate at full-load without exceeding the maximum temperature u . The time required
for the motor to reach this temperature u at any motor-current value I can be
calculated from the following equation:

U = I 2 * t, (2)

where
I is the motor current in per unit,
t is the time to reach u in seconds.

According to the previous discussion, each motor has its own thermal limit. The
proposed digital relay calculates the thermal limit of each motor based on equation
(2). By substituting ( I = the starting current of the motor, and t = the starting

Figure 1. Motor-current protection curve.

456 W. A. Farag and M. I. Kamel

time of the motor), this gives the thermal limit U with a good estimate. This is
more practical than using equation (1) to calculate the thermal limit, which needs
the determination of some parameters (such as C T and R ) that are dicult to
estimate.
As each motor has a constant thermal limit U , the relay protection curve can
be modeled by equation (2). Figure 1 shows the current-time curve used by the
protector to protect the motor during heavy over-current and over-load abnormal
conditions. The safe and unsafe areas of operation are also shown. A subroutine in
the protector builds this protection curve based on two parameters: the starting-
current and the starting-time of the motor under consideration. These two param-
eters should be provided to the protector by the operator during the parameter-
setting process.

4 RM S Calculations
The RMS values of a periodic signal, z ( t ) within a period 2¼ radians, are deŽned
in continuous form as [10]
2¼
1
Zrm s = z 2 ( t ) * dt . (3)
2¼ 0

In discrete form, the RMS value of a sampled signal, zk , can be obtained as

N 1
1
Z r m sk = zk2 r, (4)
N
r= 0

where z 1 , z 2 , . . . , z N = 0, and the number of samples in the a fundamental

frequency cycle is given by N . The quantity Z r m s k represents the RMS value of the
entire signal considering DC, fundamental and up to the n th harmonic, where n is
equal to (( N = 2) 1). Equation (4) can be rewritten in a recursive form to reduce
the computations as follows:
Z r¢ m s k = Z r¢m s k 1
+ zk2 z k2 N , (5)
where, Z r¢m s 1 = 0, z 1 , z 2 , . . . , z N = 0.
Now the RMS value is given by
Z r¢m s k
Z r m sk = . (6)
N
Using this algorithm, the RMS values of all currents and voltages of the motor
measured by the proposed digital protector are calculated.

5 Digital Filtering
A second-order, band-pass, butter-worth digital Žlter is designed and used in the
proposed relay to cancel out analog-to-digital conversion errors and truncation er-
rors. The Žlter has a unity gain at 50 Hz, and it is based on the following recursive
equation:
y( n ) = a 1 x ( n 2) + a 2 x ( n 1) + a 3 x ( n ) + b1 y ( n 1) + b2 y ( n 2) , (7)
where y ( n ) is the output and x ( n ) is the input of the Žlter at the n th sample.
 Microprocessor-Based Protection System for Induction Motors 457

The coecients { a 1 a 2 a 3 b1 b2 } are calculated based on the sampling-time, the

desired band-width, the center frequency of the Žlter, and the normalized coe-
cients of the standard analog butter-worth, band-pass Žlter.

6 Hardware Implementation
The overall conŽguration scheme of induction motor when connected to the digital
protector is shown in Figure 2. The scheme illustrates the connection of the potential
transformers (star-connected) to the supply lines of the motor and the connection
of the current transducers to both the supply and earthing wires. A thermocouple
buried in the stator winding works as a temperature transducer that generates a
proportional analog voltage ( V t ), which is sent to one of the digital protector’ s
inputs. The conŽguration shows that two current transducers are only used for
measuring the three-phase currents. The third phase-current is estimated from the
measurements of the other two phases. This method saves an extra electronic-
current transducer and instead uses only a few calculations.
The digital protector hardware consists of four functional boards: the data-
acquisition/ digital-processing board, the programming/ monitoring board, the
signal-conditioning board, and the power-supply board. The block diagram of the

Figure 2. The connection of the digital protector to the induction motor.

458 W. A. Farag and M. I. Kamel

Figure 3. Block diagram of the digital protector hardware. CT: current trans-
former; PT: potential transformer; TS: temperature sensor; AF & S: analog Žlter
and scalar; AS: analog scalar; SUM & S: summer and scalar; S/ H: sample and hold;
ADC: analog to digital converter; AB: address bus; DB: data bus.

relay hardware is shown in Figure 3. The voltage and current signals are scaled and
isolated using the potential transformers and current transducers, respectively. The
isolated analog signals are Žltered to minimize the aliasing error [1]. Second-order,
butter-worth, low-pass analog Žlters are used to reject all frequency components
beyond the half-sampling frequency [16]. The Žltered signals are then multiplexed
using an analog multiplexer (MUX). The output of the MUX is sampled using
a sample and hold unit (S/ H). The sampling frequency is selected to be 600 Hz
or 12 samples per fundamental-frequency-cycle. The sampled signal is converted
 Microprocessor-Based Protection System for Induction Motors 459

to digital form using ADC. Mc-8031 [11] is used to control all the procedures
in the digital protector. It controls the operation of the analog MUX, the S/ H,
and the ADC, as well as the keypad and the display units. Many peripherals are
connected to the ¹c 8031 to facilitate the execution of all these tasks. An 8 kb
static RAM is used as an external data memory, an 8 kb Erasable-Programmable
ROM is used as an external program memory, a PPI (Programmable-Peripheral-
Interface) chip is used as an input/ output port, and a digital decoder is used to
select one of the peripherals to work with the ¹c 8031, one at a time, accord-
ing to the states of the address bus. The ¹c 8031 executes a variety of signal
processing algorithms to estimate the relay parameters and the thermal state of
the motor.
The user interface is provided through a keypad and seven-segments display
unit, which allows the user to set/ display/ modify the relay set-points and dis-
play various relay parameters. A ¹c-8031 assembly routine is developed to manage
the user interface protocol. The software algorithms are stored in the EPROM,
whereas the RAM is used for temporary storage of data. The power-supply board
is implemented to provide the relay with various supply voltages that are required
for proper operation. The output DC voltages are well regulated, stabilized, and
smoothed.

7 Software Implementation
DiŒerent algorithms are required to control the hardware and to perform the var-
ious tanks of the motor protector. The software that includes these algorithms is
developed in modular programming technique and divided into three modules:

1. Initialization module: This module contains the initialization routines for

the peripherals of the ¹c 8031, the protector parameters, and other system
variables. The initialized-peripherals in this module are the programmable
I/ O ports, the ¹c 8031-ports, and the ¹c-8031 timer-units. The following
variables are also initialized in this module: the trip-bit status, the convert
(ADC) bit, the (S/ H) bit, the interrupts of the ¹c 8031, the priority levels
of the interrupts, and the stackpointer.
2. Processing module: This module consists of three essential parts:
Data-acquisition and computation part, which is responsible for collecting
the samples of the eight analog channels of the protector, converting them to
digital form, and storing them in the RAM. Then the samples are digitally
Žltered and the RMS values of the current and voltage-signals are computed.
Fault detection part, which contains various algorithms developed to de-
tect the occurrence of the diŒerent prementioned abnormal conditions during
the operation of the motor. The protection technique is divided into eight
separate algorithms. The algorithms are deŽned by their functions as fol-
lows: phase-reversal protection, heavy over-current protection, over/ under-
voltage protection, over-current protection [9], over-temperature protection,
current-unbalance protection, repeated-startings protection, and earth-fault
protection.
Watch-dog part, which detects any disturbances in the computation and
minimizes their eŒects on the computation results. The disturbances in the
computation comes from many sources, such as the resolution errors of the
460 W. A. Farag and M. I. Kamel

ADC and the truncation errors due to the limitations of the integer-processor
( ¹c 8031). Another error occurs due to the inaccurate determination of the
sample or hold instances of the S/ H. These errors are lumped together in
what is called “ digitization error.” Such digitization errors accumulate while
using the recursive algorithm deŽned by equations (5, 6), and as a result,
the algorithm diverges, producing hazardous outputs. The solution of this
problem is to refresh the computation after certain intervals of recursion. The
watch-dog routine determines these intervals and performs the refreshments
using one of the timer units in the ¹c 8031.
3. Monitoring module: This module includes the procedures required for
Driving the keypad for recognition of key-pressing.
Driving the seven segments display units.
Realizing the required functions for setting the protector and entering
the motor parameters. These parameters are as follows: the full-load phase
current, the input phase voltage, the operating temperature, the starting
current in per unit, and the starting time in seconds.
Realizing the required functions for monitoring and displaying some pa-
rameters, such as the RMS value of each phase current, the RMS value of
each phase voltage, and the instantaneous temperature value in ° C.

Figure 4 illustrates how the main parts of the protector software are linked
together in order to realize the protector functions. Figure 5 shows some concepts
of the comparison technique used to compare the measured-signal values with the
settings of the protector.

8 Protection A lgorithms
1. Phase-reversal protection: A phase-sequence word, which is composed of
three bits, is used to carry the information about the phase-sequence in a
binary form. A look-up table is stored in the ROM and contains the six pos-
sible phase-sequence words for healthy operation. The six words are stored
in the same order of occurrence. If the coming words from the motor does
not have the same values or order as in the look-up table, this means that
a sequence fault takes place and a trip single is issued. This algorithm also
detects phase-loss fault.
2. Heavy over-current protection: Once the phase-current becomes higher than
1.2 times the starting-current, an instantaneous trip signal is issued.
3. Over/under-voltage protection: According to the protector setting. There are
upper and lower limits for the supply voltages. A delayed trip signal is issued
if one of the voltages violates these limits. This algorithm also detects the
large unbalance in supply voltages.
4. Over-current protection: This includes any current more than the full-load
current and less than the starting-current. The protector uses the protection
curve that is shown in Figure 1.
5. Over-temperature protection: A look-up table is stored in the ROM and con-
tains the nonlinear ° C-volt response of the thermocouple. If the temperature
exceeds the withstanding temperature limit of the motor, the protector is-
sues a delayed trip signal.
Microprocessor-Based Protection System for Induction Motors 461

Figure 4. Flow chart of the digital protector software.

462 W. A. Farag and M. I. Kamel

Figure 5. The comparison technique.

 Microprocessor-Based Protection System for Induction Motors 463

6. Current-unbalance protection: The algorithm compares the three-phase cur-

rents and calculates the unbalance percentage. If this percentage is more
than allowed, the protector issues a trip signal. This technique also detects
the phase-loss fault.
7. Repeated-startings protection: The algorithm is used to limit the number of
startings of the motor during a preset period to a preset number. It also
prevents any further starting until the end of the period, if that number will
exceed the setting.
8. Earth-fault protection: The protector trips if the measured ground-current
exceeds a preset value. This algorithm detects the breakdown of insulation
between the stator-winding and stator-body.

9 Conclusion
In this paper, the implementation of the microprocessor-based protection system
has been described. The software, as well as the various algorithms used within the
protector, have also been discussed.
All of the circuits of the protection system have been designed, implemented,
and assembled at the Power-Electronics Laboratory at the Electrical Engineering
Department of Cairo University. A 4HP 3-phase induction motor is connected to
the protection system through the measuring devices, as illustrated in Figure 2.
The motor is loaded using a DC generator and connected to a 3-phase supply
through a circuit breaker. A torque-measuring apparatus is used to measure the
loading on the induction motor. A lot of testing procedures have been carried out
on the protection system under various motor loading conditions. Many abnormal
conditions and faults have been stimulated to test the protector. The testing is
successful and the protection system shows a good performance in detecting the
faults and in clearing them. The testing routines are carried many times and the
protector shows the same good performance.
The protection system realizes many current-time characteristics according to
the type of the detected abnormal condition. These characteristics can be summa-
rized as follows:
· An inverse deŽnite minimum time (IDMT) curve (I2 t = constant) for the
overload condition, as illustrated by the curve in Figure 1.
· A deŽnite time (DT) curve for unbalance of phase currents, ground fault,
over-voltage, and under-voltage conditions.
· An instantaneous characteristics for heavy over-current condition.
The fastest tripping time measured is about 6.5 msec or (1/ 3 cycle). This was after
a simulated heavy over-current or stalling fault.
Finally, this paper has presented an inexpensive and reliable microprocessor-
based protection system for the three-phase induction motors. This system is consid-
ered superior if compared with the conventional electromechanical and solid-states
protection systems.

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