JP5840495B2 - System and method for detecting and locating intermittent electrical faults in electrical systems - Google Patents

Description

[Cross-reference with related applications]
This application is a continuation of US patent application Ser. No. 12 / 262,664, filed Oct. 31, 2008, and claims the benefit of the patent application, and on Oct. 31, 2008. This is a continuation-in-part of US patent application Ser. No. 12 / 262,717 filed and claims the benefit of both patent applications, the contents of both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. Be incorporated.

  The present application relates to a method for detecting and / or locating electrical faults in an electrical system or network.

  Intermittent electrical failures are physical events that sometimes occur in electrical systems or networks, and often occur unpredictably. If an intermittent failure occurs in the system, the system may produce erroneous results or may fail. To name a few specific examples of specific electrical faults occurring in the network, the wires can rub against nearby wires, and this contact can result in a slight electrical arc. In another example, the clamp may break through the insulator surrounding the wiring and touch the wiring to cause a failure. In yet another example, a failure may occur due to the wiring at the rear end of the connector being cut off. In yet another example, corrosion can cause intermittent contact between wires and pins in a given system. In another example, electrical failure may occur due to water dripping onto the wiring due to cracks in the wiring in the system (or the wiring touching other materials). In systems that include electrical coils, the internal coil winding insulation in the electrical machine may fail and cause electrical failure.

  Intermittent electrical failure can have serious consequences, often severely damage electrical equipment, and can result in injury to the user or loss of life. For example, an electrical fire may occur due to the occurrence of several electrical faults. If this failure occurs in an aircraft, the fuel tank may explode if an electrical failure occurs near the fuel tank. Even if no major damage or injury has occurred, intermittent electrical failures may result in a shortened operating life of the machine or system. One feature of intermittent failures is that they are random and unpredictable. These recurrences are also unpredictable. However, if an intermittent failure is not detected and repaired, it can be a serious, catastrophic and permanent failure that can later cause death, failure, or destruction.

  Prior attempts to identify electrical faults have relied on visual or instrumented electrical system inspection. However, these conventional methods have various drawbacks. For example, system operation often needs to be stopped to determine the presence of a fault, resulting in various problems such as lost profits for the system owner or operator. In addition, there are many places in existing systems that are difficult to reach and / or observe, which severely limits the effectiveness of these methods. These conventional methods often fail to detect failures because failure periods are often short and the system behaves normally as if nothing had happened after this bunch of intermittent failure events It has been proven. Therefore, it is relatively easy for an observer to miss the occurrence of a failure. Also, these methods often rely on cumbersome arrangements of devices to use, which often cause at least some interruption of existing systems.

  Other conventional methods have relied on transmitting electromagnetic waves across the network under observation. In one conventional example, a pulse was sent to the network and any reflections were analyzed to determine if a fault existed. More specifically, it transmitted an incident standing wave or impulse that was reflected in the network and calculated the time between the incident pulse and the reflected pulse to determine the distance to where the pulse was reflected. . At this time, various criteria were used to determine if the reflection was a potential failure. One problem with this technique is that a failure is erroneously determined by any change in the wiring material (such as a network branch) that reflects the incident wave. Another problem with this technique is that it requires the transmission of high voltage pulses, and some electrical systems that contain thin coils (such as short wires or thin windings) cannot withstand this. there were. Other time-domain reflectometry methods that employ spread spectrum techniques also exist, but this method still requires high-voltage pulse transmission and reflections occur on the branches of the electrical network, thus resolving the above problems. It wasn't something to do.

  Another conventional method is to transmit a sequence spread spectrum modulated signal directly instead of a high voltage signal and employs signal processing techniques in an attempt to find and locate electrical faults. However, these methods relied on reflectance measurement methods that transmit incident signals, receive reflected signals and their timing, and perform distance calculations. As a result, this method could overcome the need to use high voltage incident voltage pulses in some circumstances, but the problem of reflections occurring at all points of the branch in the network and connected devices. I still had it.

  Yet another problem with reflectometry is that the location of the device must be near one end of either the line end or the source end of the electrical system. Otherwise, the injected signal will be reflected from both ends, resulting in a combined, distorted and reflected signal. Many electrical networks are connected in a complex format, often in a mesh architecture, making it very difficult to meet this requirement of placing devices at either end.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a failure determination system according to various embodiments of the invention. FIG. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a byte map used in a failure determination system according to various embodiments of the present invention. 2 is a block diagram and a failure determination table illustrating one method for failure determination, according to various embodiments of the present invention. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a failure determination device according to various embodiments of the present invention. FIG. FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating one method for determining a failure, according to various embodiments of the invention. FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating one method for determining a failure, according to various embodiments of the invention. FIG. 6 is a block diagram and flow diagram illustrating one method for determining an electrical fault, according to various embodiments of the invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a transmitter and a receiver according to various embodiments of the invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a transmitter or receiver according to various embodiments of the invention.

  Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the elements in the figures are shown for simplicity and clarity and are not necessarily to scale. For example, in order to facilitate understanding of various embodiments of the present invention, some dimensions and / or relative positions of elements in the figures may be emphasized relative to other elements. Also, common but general elements useful or necessary in commercially feasible embodiments are often not shown in order to make these various embodiments of the present invention easier to see. It will be further understood that some operations and / or steps are described or illustrated in the particular order in which they occur, but those skilled in the art do not actually need such specificity for order. Will understand. The terms and expressions used herein are intended to be the usual terms and expressions according to the respective respective research and research scope of such terms and expressions, unless specifically indicated otherwise herein. It will also be understood that it has meaning.

  A method for detecting the presence and location of faults in an electrical system is provided. This method uses one or more transmitters to transmit a signal (such as a packet) to one receiver, and the transmitted signal is due to signal transmission distortion caused by a primary intermittent failure. And / or determine the location of an electrical fault based on the mismatch of the signals received at the receiver. The method described herein is easy to use and cost effective, can be deployed anywhere in an electrical network without relying on the transmission of high voltage signals, This is an effective detection method for an unpredictable intermittent event of a failure occurring between machines, and is not affected by a false failure indication obtained by a conventional method.

  In many of these embodiments, signals are transmitted from multiple transmitters located within the electrical network. The signal transmitted by the transmitter is received at a single receiver located within the electrical network. In this single receiver, the received signal is analyzed and from the analysis of the received signal, it is determined whether a fault has occurred between the transmitter and the receiver in the electrical network. The location of the failure can also be specified.

  In some examples, a random pause period is inserted between continuously transmitted signals. Each of the plurality of transmitters has an associated unique bit combination that uniquely identifies the transmitter, and this unique combination bit is included in the signal transmitted to the receiver. The receiver analyzes the received bit combination, compares this bit combination to the expected bit combination (expected to be received from the transmitter), and if there is no match, transmits in the electrical network It is determined that there is an electrical fault in the part between the receiver and the receiver. Based on this analysis, the location of the electrical fault can also be identified.

  In another example, each of the multiple transmitters receives a command signal from a single receiver. Each transmitter transmits a signal to a single receiver only when a command signal is received at the selected transmitter. There is no expected message from the transmitter, or any received message does not match the message sent in response to the command signal (compared to the expected value) If present, these indicate the presence of an open circuit or a potential fault.

  Referring now to FIG. 1, an example of a method for determining and detecting electrical faults in the electrical network 100 is shown. Electrical interconnect backbone 102 is coupled to transmitters 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114 and 116 via electrical branches 120, 122, 124, 126, 128 and 130, respectively. Electrical interconnect backbone 102 is also connected to receiver 118. The electrical interconnect backbone 102 may be any kind of electrical connection at any voltage level or of any current type, such as direct current or alternating current. For example, the trunk line 102 can include two wires (such as a wire that is grounded and the other transmits DC current and voltage). Power can be supplied by other examples of the trunk line configuration and any number of wirings. In one example, a power supply having a voltage of about 100 vRMS (or 28V DC) is distributed across the trunk line 102 and the entire network 100 branch.

  Transmitters 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, and 116 can transmit any type of modulated communication signal, including any type of information, through electrical circuit 102 without compromising the power delivery function of electrical network 102. Any type of device. For example, the transmitters 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, and 116 may send a message to an appropriate signal through a controller (such as an appropriate voltage level) for transmission with a controller for generating a packet or message. A modem for conversion and a combined network that provides filtering and protection functions for connecting any of the transmitters to the electrical interconnect backbone 102 may be included. As described above, the transmitters 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114 and 116 can operate at any voltage level suitable for the electrical interconnect backbone 102 to transmit packets or messages.

  Receiver 118 is any device that can receive a modulated communication signal over electrical interconnect backbone 102 from any of transmitters 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, and 116. Similar to transmitters 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114 and 116, receiver 118 may also include a controller, a modem and a combined network. As described above, the combined network buffers the receiver or transmitter from the electrical interconnect backbone 102 with a filtering function so that the receiver or transmitter can connect the electrical interconnect backbone 102 to the high voltage of the electrical network. So that the modulated signal is effectively transmitted and received. A modem in the transmitter modulates the digital signal generated by the controller and the modulated signal travels through the coupling network into the electrical network. The receiver modem accepts the modulated signal transmitted from the transmitter via the combined network, demodulates the signal into a digital byte format, and transmits the digital data to the receiver controller. The receiver controller processes the signal for data errors or inconsistencies to determine whether a failure has been detected, or whether a failure has been detected and / or a possible failure location. From this process, various error rates can be obtained.

  Receiver 118 communicates with port 132, which is coupled to external device 134. The external device 134 may be a personal computer, display, declarator, or any other type of device that can alert the user that a failure has been detected somewhere in the network 100. The location of the failure and the message error rate calculated for this location can also be displayed to provide the severity (probability) or status of the failure progression. In an alternative method, if the receiver 118 is limited to only providing inconsistencies or error occurrences, the external device 134, not the receiver 118, provides some or all of this fault determination processing capability. Can do.

  In one example of the operation of the system of FIG. 1, transmitters 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114 and 116 send messages to receiver 118. The receiver 118 analyzes the received message and, based on the results of this analysis, determines whether there is a fault, the possibility that a fault exists, and / or (a particular branch 120, 122, Identify the location of possible (or determined) fault (s) (such as within 124, 126 and 128 or 130). Although the example of FIG. 1 shows a single receiver, it will be appreciated that any number of receivers may be used within the network 100. Also, any number of transmitters can be used within the network 100.

  If errors are detected and / or these locations are identified, corrective action can be taken. For example, a user can access a potential error site to determine if a problem exists, and if a problem exists, it can correct the problem (such as by replacing wiring).

  Referring now to FIG. 2, an example message format for a message sent based on the method described herein is shown. The message or packet 200 includes a preamble byte 202, a receiver information byte 204, a transmitter information byte 206, and 4 to m message bytes 208, where m is an integer greater than four. In one method, each transmitter in the system (such as transmitter 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, or 116 in FIG. 1) is known to the receiver (such as receiver 118 in FIG. 1). Have a uniquely identifiable message byte (eg, some unique pattern of binary 1's and 0's) that uniquely identifies the transmitter. All information in the message or packet 200 is included in the data stream sent to the receiver.

  In order to detect errors or faults, in one method, the receiver compares the data received from the transmitters with pre-allocated stored data for the individual transmitters. If the received data does not match the expected data, a failure is potentially detected. If no expected message or packet expected to be transmitted from the transmitter is received at the receiver, this can also indicate that there is a fault in the form of an open circuit in the network.

  For transmission across a network, various methods can be used to ensure signal integrity (eg, to ensure that signals transmitted by multiple transmitters do not interfere with each other). Regardless of the method used, the individual transmitter's modem monitors the wiring through a “carrier detection” method that detects whether any modulated signal is present on the wire, and the signal is present on the wire. Wait for the signal transmission until it stops. Therefore, at any moment, only one transmitter can transmit a signal. In one method, multiple transmitters transmit signals without control of the receiver. To ensure signal integrity, a random pause is inserted after each signal transmission. Individual transmitters are equally likely to send signals to the receiver, so that individual wiring sections (such as each branch of the network) have the potential for error detection compared to any other electrical branch. Monitored with equal equal priority.

  In another method that can be used to perform signal arbitration, only the transmitter commanded by the receiver can transmit the signal. In other words, the receiver becomes the master of this single master and multi-slave protocol. The receiver sends a message such as the message of FIG. 2 or a packet (such as a command) to the transmitter. After the transmitter receives a message or packet from the receiver, the message is copied and returned to the receiver. Compare the received message with the transmitted message at the receiver to determine if there is an error in the signal indicating that a fault exists in the wiring section between the receiver and the commanded transmitter . In some ways, and as described elsewhere in this specification, if the receiver is unable to detect a return message (such as within a given time), an error indicating a possible disconnect, open circuit is detected. Is done.

  Referring now to FIG. 3, an example of using these methods to detect errors or failures in the network 300 is shown. In this example, electrical trunk line 302 is coupled to transmitters 304, 306 and 308, and receiver 310. The network 300 is divided into parts S1, S2 and S3 and branches Br1, Br2 and Br3.

  A table 312 is stored in the memory of the receiver and is used to identify the location of one or more possible electrical faults within the network 300. For example, the techniques described herein are used to determine whether a particular error exists in one of the branches associated with a particular transmitter. For example, if the expected data from transmitter 304 does not match the expected data and there is no mismatch from transmitters 306 and 308, this may indicate that a fault exists at branch Br1. .

  Using table 312 with a few examples, if no errors are determined for transmitters 304, 306, and 308, there is no fault in the network. In another example, if no error is detected at transmitters 304 and 308, but an error is detected at transmitter 306, a failure may exist in both portion S2 and / or branches Br2 and Br3. It will also be appreciated that the table 312 may be any type of data structure and is not limited to the format shown in FIG. Further, the example shown in table 312 may depend greatly on the placement of transmitters and receivers, and the exact configuration of the network or other circumstances.

  Referring now to FIG. 4, an example of a transmitter or receiver 400 is shown. The apparatus 400 can be configured to operate as either a transmitter or a receiver and includes a controller 402, a modem 404, a coupling network 406, and a memory 408.

  When used as a transmitter, a message (such as a packet) can be generated and transmitted by the controller 402 to the receiver via the modem 404 and the combined network 406. The modem 404 generates a signal based on the appropriate voltage level or protocol, and the coupling network 406 is a suitable buffer that protects the modem 404 and the controller 402 from electrical faults (such as overvoltage conditions) present on the backbone. It effectively injects the modulated signal into the backbone while providing ring and / or filtering functions.

  When used as a receiver, the combined network 406 filters and captures only the modulated signal from the trunk line, and the modem 404 demodulates this signal into digital data and transmits it to the controller 402. When used as a receiver, the apparatus 400 may store the table described above with respect to FIG. As a result, the controller 402 can perform an analysis to determine one or more potential failure locations within a particular network. In addition, the controller 402 can be coupled to a port that communicates with an external device to indicate to the user the presence and location of a potential failure. In addition, controller 402, modem 404, and / or combined network 406 can be connected to an external power source.

  Referring now to FIG. 5, an example of a transmission arbitration protocol is shown. In step 502, a message or packet is transmitted from the transmitter. For example, the message can be in the format shown in FIG. In step 504, after sending the message, a random pause is inserted after the message. After that, the same message is sent again and the process is continued. For example, the receiver compares the received message with the expected message and determines that a failure exists if there is a mismatch. . If there is a mismatch, there may be a potential failure in the part of the network associated with the transmitter that sent the message.

  Referring now to FIG. 6, another example of a transmission arbitration protocol is shown. In step 602, the transmitter waits to receive a message from the receiver. In step 604, after receiving the message, the transmitter echoes the same message back to the receiver. The transmitter then waits for another command from the receiver. Meanwhile, the receiver does not receive an echoback message (such as after waiting for a predetermined time) or a message returned to the receiver (as indicated by comparing the received message with the expected message). If it contains an error, it indicates that there is a fault (including an open circuit).

  Referring now to FIG. 7, another example of the failure determination method is shown. As shown in FIG. 7, a packet 701 (having a preset value) is transmitted from the transmitters 702, 704, and 705 to the receiver controller 703 via the combined network and modem 761, which is the serial communication port of the controller 703. 736.

  The packet 701 includes, for example, a preamble byte 732, a transmitter identification byte 733, a packet number byte 734, and then n data bytes 735 of D1 to Dn. n may be any integer value. In one example, n = 24, which results in using 24 bytes of data. The data transmission rate, or bit rate, can be any speed or any modulation scheme suitable for the modem. In some examples, a 2400 bps power line modem is used that provides about 130 kHz frequency shift keying (FSK) modulation. However, other numbers of data bytes can be used with other bit rates and other modulation schemes. In some examples, a scheme that modulates a long packet at a slow bit rate may be more likely to detect intermittent failures than another scheme that modulates a short packet at a high bit rate.

  After detecting the identification byte 733 following the preamble byte 732, the receiver controller 703 reads the byte pauses one by one (step 760) and stores the packet in the internal memory space 741. In another portion of memory 741, packet 701 is stored as packet 742 and used for comparison with expected (and previously stored) packet 743. Expected packet 743 includes an expected value of information regarding packet 742. For each transmitter, the packet information stored in the memory can be compared.

  In step 762, the controller 703 reads the stored packets 742 and 743 and compares all n data bytes bit by bit against the preset n data byte values between the packets 742 and 743. The first analysis is to identify which transmitter has sent the packet and store the next analysis result for packet mismatch and associate it with that transmitter. If the two packets are the same, a result of no error is registered for this transmitter. Next, for example, failure detection and location identification are performed using the determination table of FIG. 3, and this is displayed 753 or uploaded 755 to a higher level computer. Thereafter, in step 762, the next packet transmitted from the transmitter is read.

  In step 764, details of the error (including the identity of the transmitter that sent the packet) can be stored. In step 766, it is determined whether a sufficient number of packets have been received to determine whether the user should be alerted. If the answer at step 766 is negative, control returns to step 760. If the answer is affirmative, execution continues at step 768 and a comparison with threshold 770 is made. If the number of error packets exceeds the threshold, a result 772 is generated as a result of a particular transmitter failure (eg, “1”) or no failure (eg, “0”), as in the table of FIG. A final decision regarding failure determination is made using a table (stored in memory), which includes port 750 (for display on declarator 751), communication port 752 (for display on display 753) and / or Or communicated to one or more of ports 754 (for display on personal computer 755). Depending on the type of display, a graphic image can be generated and displayed on some or all of the external devices described above.

  As described herein, pauses can be inserted between transmitted packets. In one example, in a system using an 8-bit and 20 MHz speed microcontroller, the pause between two consecutive packets is about 100 milliseconds. The downtime is selected to be sufficient for processing. For example, the downtime can be selected so that the failure determination process can be completed and an error message can be sent to an external device (such as declarator 751, display 753, and / or personal computer 755). Pause time can also include time that allows a predetermined number of packets, such as 1000 packets, to be processed.

  The threshold level of the error rate that triggers a failure (such as “1”) or no failure (such as “0”) can be any predetermined value, or the system has been run under faultless wiring conditions It can be decided later. Further, the threshold can be automatically determined using the error rate by comparing the error rate during actual / standard operating conditions with the error rate of actual intermittent fault conditions. Prior to deploying the method described above, test runs can be performed in gradual intermittent fault conditions with a threshold level of failure or failure-free boundaries, which increases detection probability and at the same time false alarms and Reduce unpleasant readings.

  Various error rates can be specified. For example, the first error type that can be calculated is the net packet error rate (NPER), which is the percentage of packets that contain errors in the total number of received packets. For NPER, lost packets due to errors in the identification byte (s) are ignored.

  Alternatively, the total packet error rate (TPER) can be calculated. This rate is the ratio of the number of packets received with error in the total number of transmitted packets.

  In another example, the net byte error rate (NBER) can be calculated. NBER is the ratio of the number of packets received with only one data byte error caused by a 1 or 2 bit error in a byte in the received packets without error. NBER, unlike NPER or TPER, targets very short shredding. A very short time break due to an intermittent failure may cause a 1 or 2 bit error in the byte data rather than the entire data byte.

  Yet another error rate that can be identified is the total bytes, which is the ratio of the number of packets received with one data byte error caused by a 1 or 2 bit error in the byte to the total number of packets transmitted. There is an error rate (TBER). TBER ignores all cuts that are long enough to cause an error in multiple data bytes. This rate does not include or take into account the long breaks that can be caused by normal switching operations, thus reducing the number of false alarms.

  Referring now to FIG. 8, the receiver 801 receives the packet transmitted by the transmitter 802 via the wires 810 and 811. If the wiring carries a DC current, one of the wiring 810 or 811 can be a ground wiring. In the example of FIG. 8, both the receiver 801 and the transmitter 802 have the same functional structure and include a power line modem 802 or 804 and a controller 803 or 805. Receiver 801 includes additional interface outputs or ports 812, 813 and 814. Output 813 is connected to indicator / declarator 807 to send an alarm upon detection of an intermittent failure. This alarm can take the form of a flashing light (such as a light emitting diode (LED)) and / or an audible indication. Port 813 is used to display alarm conditions with text and graphics on a display 806 (such as a liquid crystal display (LCD)). In addition, output 814 is used to send an alarm condition to computer system 820 via serial communication port 808 for display on a computer screen or for further analysis of alarm condition data. The errors and error rates described herein can be displayed based on any of the display methods described herein.

  The transmitter 802 includes a power line modem 804 and a controller 805. The controller 805 is a microcontroller or microprocessor containing computer code that controls digital logic and transmits bytes of digital data (such as packets). The computer code manages the number of packets to be transmitted and the frequency of packet transmission.

  Now referring to FIG. 9, an example of a transmitter 900 is shown. The power line modem 921 in the transmitter 900 receives the digital data stream serially transmitted from the controller 903, converts the digital data into analog data, and converts the analog data (digital logic 1 into an analog signal of a predetermined frequency). Encode to encode digital logic 0 to another frequency) and modulate with FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) method. The modulated signal is amplified by amplifier 922 and transmitted to wires 910 and 911 via a coupler 923 that transmits the modulated signal and blocks all other signals outside the frequency band.

  The modem 921 may be any commercially available modem chip. The modem 921 can include a filter that band-passes only the frequency band used in the specific FSK method employed. The modem 921 has four control and data communication lines with the controller 903. These include an RX control 930 for controlling the reception of digital data, a TX control 931 for controlling the transmission of digital data, and whether and when the modem 922 has received a modulation signal from the electrical wiring. It includes a carrier detection (CD) control 932 for indicating to the controller 903 and an RX / TX control 933 for indicating whether a digital signal has been received and will be transmitted.

  The modulation signal is automatically transmitted from the modem 921 and amplified by the amplifier circuit 922. This amplified modulated signal is then provided to the electrical wiring via a coupler 923 that passes the signal in the frequency band and blocks all other signals. In one example, the combiner 923 is a transducer coil 924 that includes filtering capacitors 925 and 926. In one method, the structure of the receiver is the same as that of the transmitter 900 (or nearly the same if the receiver has a port for communicating with an external device).

  Various transmission protocols can be used. For example, any byte of data can be sent from the receiver to indicate that the data is to be sent to the transmitter.

  Packets can be sent to the receiver with various bytes of data. For example, a preamble byte can be included. The next byte is sent to identify the transmitter and receiver. In one example, if the identification byte is a preset data value such as 10110011 byte data, the receiver checks whether the received identification byte is 10110011. If the received identification byte is the same as the preset data, the receiver is now ready to receive the subsequent data stream. One or more bytes can be used for identification purposes.

  As described above, in one example, a group of data bytes including a preamble, identification information, and actual data form a packet. In one method, one packet is transmitted from the transmitter, and the receiver receives the same one packet. In one method, the transmitter repeatedly transmits the same packet with a pause between the two packets until a set number of packets (such as 956 packets) are transmitted, for example. Thereafter, packet transmission is resumed. Under intermittent failure conditions, the preamble byte can be noised out or the quality of the identification byte can be degraded, since it is interpreted that the packet is not intended to be sent to the receiver. The receiver ignores the packet whose identification information byte has deteriorated. In this case, one packet is lost and there is a packet error.

  Thus, a method is provided for detecting the presence and location of faults within an existing electrical network. This method utilizes one or more transmitters to transmit signals (such as packets) to one or more receivers and determines the presence and location of electrical faults based on the signals received at the receivers. To do. The method described herein is easy to use and cost effective and can be deployed anywhere in an electrical network without relying on transmission of high voltage signals, Unaffected by fake fault indications obtained.

  Although the invention disclosed herein has been described with particular embodiments and applications thereof, many modifications and changes can be made to the invention by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention.

102 electrical interconnect backbone 104 transmitter 106 transmitter 108 transmitter 110 transmitter 112 transmitter 114 transmitter 116 transmitter 118 receiver 124 electrical branch 126 electrical branch 128 electrical branch 132 port 134 external device 200 packet

Claims (7)

A method for determining and locating intermittent electrical faults, comprising:
Combining a plurality of transmitters and a single receiver into a single transmission line;
Transmitting a signal from said plurality of transmitters located in an electrical network,
Said signal transmitted by each of the plurality of transmitters, comprising the steps of: receiving in said single receiver located within the electrical network, the signal received at said single receiver, wherein Not generated by a single receiver, but transmitted over the transmission line; and
Analyzing the received signal at the single receiver and determining from the analysis of the received signal whether a fault has occurred in the electrical network; and
Determining, at the single receiver, the location of the electrical fault based on an analysis of the received signal;
Only including,
Transmitting the signal comprises inserting a random pause between consecutively transmitted signals;
Each of the plurality of transmitters has an associated unique bit combination that uniquely identifies the transmitter, the unique combination bit being included in the signal transmitted to the receiver;
The receiver analyzes the received bit combination, compares the bit combination with an expected bit combination, and determines that an electrical fault exists if no match exists. . Transmitting the signal receives a command signal from the single receiver at a selected transmitter, and only when the command signal is received at the selected transmitter; Transmitting the signal from each to the single receiver;
The method according to claim 1. A plurality of transmitters each configured to transmit a signal over at least a portion of an electrical network;
Receiving a signal transmitted by each of the plurality of transmitters over a single communication line, analyzing the received signal, and analyzing the received signal to determine when a failure has occurred in the electrical network; And a single receiver communicatively coupled to the plurality of transmitters via the single communication line configured to locate the fault;
Only including,
Each of the plurality of transmitters is configured to insert a random pause between consecutively transmitted signals;
Each of the plurality of transmitters has a unique bit combination identifying an individual transmitter, the unique bit combination being included in a signal transmitted to the single receiver;
The single receiver analyzes the received bit and compares the received bit with an expected bit and if there is no match between the received bit and the expected bit; A fault determination system configured to determine that a fault exists . The single receiver is configured to identify the location of the fault based on a comparison of the received bit and the expected bit;
The system according to claim 3 . Each of the plurality of transmitters is configured to receive a command signal from the single receiver and transmit a signal to the single receiver only after receiving the command signal;
The system according to claim 3 . Further comprising an external device coupled to the single receiver;
The system according to claim 3 . The external device is selected from the group consisting of a declarator, a display, and a computer device;
The system according to claim 3 .

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