INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KHARAGPUR 721302, DECEMBER 27-29, 2002 505

Development of Computer based Combined

Protection Control and Monitoring Systems
Kumardeep Mazumder, Imon Mallik, Adhijit Chakraborty, Ajoy Kr. Chakraborty

Abstract-- Microprocessor based protection scheme substituted digital computer for protection of power system equipment.
the Electro-mechanical and static analogue relaying practice. In Although there are no complete commercially available
this paper a multifunctional relay has been designed using state protection system offering relays based on digital computers
of the art pc interfacing technology. An users friendly software but ideas being developed in this field and presented here will
program has been developed with C ++ which helps in processing
be a paradigm shift in the field of protection system of the
and interfacing both. The relay includes differential, over
current, under voltage, Impedance relaying (Distance future. In this scheme signal processing to convert instrument
protection) functions. The computer based programmable transformer output signals into a form suitable for AD
protective scheme is having wider flexibility , higher reliability conversion is a common requirement [4]. Plug setting could
and higher speed of operation compared to existing relays. The be performed by means of soft ware programming. Moreover
hardware part includes various electronic logic circuits viz. to obtain maximum input signal resolution for different
Current to voltage counter (I-V), clock generator, power supply, nominal operating current levels it would be better to make
Analog to Digital Converter(ADC) etc. The objective here is to their function by an ADC chip of 0809 or 0808. In this
sense the system parameters (system current, system voltage) scheme through parallel port the RTU are assessed with
and process the parameters compared with the data base and system parameters. These RTU's run a programme under
sent trip signal to circuit breaker(CB) under fault conditions. In
this scheme various unmanned stations are connected to the
infinite loop that implements the various relay logic. If it
Central Monitoring Station (CMS) which acts as back up detects fault by means of the implemented logic then it sends
protection. Various unmanned stations are deployed by Remote trip signal to the circuit breaker(CB) via parallel port. This
Terminal Units (RTU). Through parallel port the RTU are RTU also maintains a data base of occurrence of various
accessed with a system parameters. These RTU runs a program faults and simultaneously communicates with the Central
under infinite loop that implements the various relay logic and Monitoring Station (CMS) to its serial port. The CMS thus
act as primary protection . registered not a particular type of fault that occurred in a
particular unmanned station but maintains a data base of
various occurrence of faults in various unmanned station and
Index Terms-- Central Monitoring Station, Multifunctional
acts as a back up system when RTU fails to operate. Parallel
Relays, P.C. Interfacing. Remote Terminal Unit
port LPT-1 is used for interfacing, with the help of a 25 pin
Introduction D-type connector in the parallel port and developed the
interfacing circuit as shown in figure-1.
Different types of electromagnetic relays are well known to
power engineers which have been used in power industries Hardware and Software description:
for a long time. In a conventional protective relay, the
operating characteristics are completely defined in the design The hardware part consists of the following components:
of the hardware to meet some of the basic features like 1. Current to voltage converter(I-V)
reliability, speed, burden, simplicity and economy. For 2. Clock generator
3. Power supply
mechanical sluggishness and inherent delay power engineers 4. ADC0809
developed static relay in the next phase [1,2,6]. But it has also 5. CMS
some limitations. In 1969 Rockfeller [3] undertook the study 6. RTU
of protection of all the power equipment in a substation with
a digital computer. This work has given an impetus to use Functional Characteristics

[1] Over Current Relay: Over current relay is the simplest

Kumar Deep Majumder ,Imon Mallick,Adhijit Chakraborty have done their form of protective relay which operates when the current in
the BE(Hons) oourse in Electrical Engineering from College Of Engineering
& Management ,Kolaghat, in May 2002 P.O.=-KTPP Town Ship,East
any circuit exceeds certain predetermine value, called pick up
Midnapore, West Bengal,India Pin-721171. e-mail: value. It is extensible used for the protection of distribution
[email protected], [email protected] , line, industrial motor equipment etc.
[email protected]
Ajoy K. Chakraborty, Asst. Professor, is with the College of Engineering and
Management, Kolaghat, Department of Electrical Engineering. (telephone:
[2] Undervoltage Relay: An under voltage relay is one
91-03228-50-959(R)50-394(O), which operates if the system voltage goes bellow the preset
e-mail:[email protected],[email protected] value. Under Voltage relay may have two characteristics. i)
Instantaneous Characteristics ii) Inverse time characteristics
506 NATIONAL POWER SYSTEMS CONFERENCE, NPSC 2002

i.e. have their reduced operating time with reductioning The stepped down alternating Current was fed to the I–V
voltage converter. As the central processing unit accepts signal in
voltage form only.
a) The system voltage was stepped down using voltage Step-3:
transformer. The A.C. voltage was rectified using a precession type
rectifier.
b) b) And methodology incremented for under voltage Step-4:
were same as over current functioning. The D.C. voltage was fed to the analog to digital converter
(ADC0809 ) as it is microprocessor compatible and ADC.

Current Current to Voltage Rectifier

Converter P
Transformer A
R
Voltage Rectifier A
Transformer L
Analog to Digital L
Circuit for Differential Relay SELECT E
LINES L
CPU OF
PC
Converter
with Multiplexer P
O
R
T

Fig.1

multiplexer ( MUX ) built in.The channels were switched on

[3] Impedance Relay: An impedance relay is a relay which (selected ) by the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of the RTU.
operates if the ratio of system voltage to system current from This channel selection was done by sending signals through
relay location and the fault point, is less than the preset one bit (pin) of the parallel port using select lines of theADC.
impedance value. SOC and ALE signals were used as the start pulse of the
The operating characteristics are shown in Fig-3. ADC. These are sent to the ADC through one pin of the.
Using the interfacing ckt. For the over current and under parallel port. EOC is issued by the ADC itself, when the
voltage functioning, the impedance of line is determined by analog to digital conversion was completed.
dividing system voltage by system current. One extra This acted as input signal to the CPU via parallel port.
memory location was used for this purpose. Directional
feature has not be incorporated here but can be done by using
Step-5:
one extra circuit.
The Digital data were being processed and compared by the
[4] Differential Relay: When absolute value of the CPU with the preset value ( – hexadecimal form).
differential current in each phase winding / Bus zone exceeds If the value is more than the preset value, the CPU or the
a specified threshold for two consecutive samples, the microprocessor sends a ‘trip signal’ to the circuit breaker
software sets a flag and activates the differential relay logic. after a predetermined time delay (for Definite Time Over
A redundant time delay check has been incorporated to check current relay) or instantaneously (for Instantaneous Over
the transient overshoot in each phase. The methodology current relay ).as per requirement through one bit of the
implemented otherwise was same as stated in over current parallel port.
functioning.
Testing and Performance for proposed scheme
Methodology Implemented
This multifunctional combined protection scheme was tested
Step-1: for different kind of simulated faults, by storing different
waveform with different combination of transient overshoot
System current stepped down using CT and direct current generated by various electronic logic
circuits. The scheme has worked satisfactorily.
Step-2:
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KHARAGPUR 721302, DECEMBER 27-29, 2002 507

Advantages: (6) Lower burden on instrument transformer,

(1) The most vital advantage is that generally one relay can (7) Lower maintenance required,
provide only one type of protection, but the proposed relay (8) Very much compact compared to other types of relay, as
can easily provide a number of protections using one different relay operations are available in a single unit.
processing unit, (9) This is the vital advantage as far as the user is concerned.
(2) It has wide range of flexibility, which is not available in The system is very much user friendly. Anybody knowing
electromagnetic relay or even in static relay, only the ABC of computer can use this PC based protection
(3) High accuracy, scheme although it looks very much sophisticated. User can
(4) Fast and highly reliable, change the preset value of the actuating quantity. User can
(5) Electromagnetic and even static relay suffers from the also see the nature , i.e. the cause of fault and the location ,
problem of in adaptability to changing system conditions, i.e. , where the fault has taken place sitting in a control room
which can be solved using this relay, at a distant place, on the monitor.

Start Start

Send Signal to Multiplexer to

Send Signal to Multiplexer to
select Channel 2
select Channel 1

Send start of conversion

Send start of conversion signal to ADC
signal to ADC

Is
Is conversion
conversion over ?
over ?

Read the
Read the data(voltage)
data(current)

Is voltage < Pick-

Is current > Pick- Up value?
Up value?

Delay
Delay

Send Trip Signal to

Send Trip Signal to C.B.
C.B.

Stop Stop
508 NATIONAL POWER SYSTEMS CONFERENCE, NPSC 2002

Conclusion
The proposed computer based combined protection control Start
and monitoring system may be made more flexible with a
wider purview of operation by incorporating elements for
remote operation. This would require the RTU from the field K=0
of operation connected via a modem to the CMS. One can
enhance the schemes domain further by incorporating other
relay controls too to make it a self sufficient one. K=K+1

Start

Is K>8 ?
Set k
=0
Select Ckannel K

k=k+1 Is k >2 ?
Send SOC to ADC

Is Conversion
Send Signal to over ?
Multiplexer to
select Channel k

The required action is taken

Send start of
conversion signal
to ADC

Z=data(2)/d References
ata(1)
[1] Sachdev M.S.(Coordinator) computer relaying tutorial IEEE
No Is publication No.-79 EH 0148-7-PWR NY 1979
conv [2] Sachdev M.S.(Coordinator) computer relaying tutorial IEEE
ersio publication No.-79 EH 0148-7-PWR NJ 1988.
n
[3] Rockfeller G.D.,"Fault Protection with a Digital Computer" IEEE
trans.Vol-PAS-88 April 1969 PP-438-464.
[4] MS Sachdev & DG Hunchuk "Performance of Analog to Digital
Y Converters used in Computer relaying" IEEE PAS winter meeting NY
e 1976 PP-1-7.
[5] Patra, S.P; Basu, S.K; Chowdhuri, S. " Power System
Read the Protection" Oxford & IBH.
data(k) & [6] Basu, S.K; Basu, K; Patra, S.P. "A generalized approach
store it in to Protective Relaying, Part-1 & II " AIEE & CP 73039
memory 5th. January-February 1973.

Is Z<
Preset
value?

Send
Trip
Signal
to C.B.

Stop