Innovative Integrated Solution for Monitoring and Protection of Power Supply System from Railway Infrastructure

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative integrated solution for monitoring and protection of the power supply system of electric traction. The development of electronics devices, new possibilities to communicate (wireless), and new sensors makes it possible to design, develop and implement new hardware–software structures in various fields such as energy systems, transportation infrastructure, etc. This contributes to increasing developments in the monitoring and protection of railway infrastructure. A monitoring and protection system that uses sensors and devices to acquire electrical parameters from railway infrastructure has been developed and applied for fault detection and protection of power supply systems from electric traction. The solution of monitoring and protection presented are composed of a hardware–software structure with Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) communication for monitoring of power supply installations from the electric traction and a central remote system composed of a device with GSM communication and a server that will allow, among others things, accurate detection of the block section (SC), in which an electrical fault (short circuit) has occurred, determination of the circuit breakers electro-erosion from the railway installations and an indication of the opportune moment for maintenance activity, respectively, as well as knowledge of the technical condition of some equipment from the return circuit. The proposed and developed method for monitoring devices has been validated in the railway laboratory to confirm its capability to detect defects and was tested in the field. Experimental results in the field and appropriate data analysis are included in this article.

Multi-Objective Real-Time Tuning of SVC Used in Electrified Traction Systems

“…In this paper, the priority of the SVC operation is assigned to the current balancing before power compensation. Therefore, in each time period (1 sec), the best solution is selected from the Pareto front using (26).…”

“…These factors may be changed during the day based on the parties' decisions. In (26), npop represents the number of population members. Due to real-time operation and for better convergence of the optimization algorithm, Equations ( 15)- (19) were used for generating the initial population in the decision space.…”

“…The monitoring power supply of the electric traction system is an important concern for transportation infrastructures. In this regard, a monitoring system has been proposed in [26], which is capable of detecting short circuit fault as well as electro-erosion of the circuit breakers. This system acquires electrical parameters of the railway through a hardwaresoftware structure combined with a global system for mobile communications (GSM).…”

Considerations Regarding Electrical Equipment Monitoring Through Infrared Thermography

“…For a correct interpretation of the severity of the overtemperatures detected in infrared thermographic images, post-processing activities are required, which will calculate and compensate the temperatures identified in the elements of the investigated electrical equipment. At this stage, corrections will be made regarding the degree of electric current load of the investigated elements, as well as the level of wind influence in the case of outdoor investigations, (Andrusca et al, 2021), only after these final adjustments will the identified defect be correctly framed.…”

Selection of Surge Protection Module Components for Communication Lines Using a Genetic Algorithm

“…Some of them are caused by difficult environmental conditions, i.e., wide working temperature range from −50 °C (Siberian regions) to 85 °C, humidity, and even the risk of flooding in the Netherlands. Additionally, a train is powered up by high voltage (up to 25 kV [ 1 , 2 ]) and such a power line generates a huge electric field [ 3 ] which causes disturbances in the operation of electronic equipment. Train acceleration (as speed increases) also has an impact on the current observed [ 4 , 5 , 6 ] in the surrounding rail infrastructure.…”