An FPGA based travelling-wave fault location system

This paper presents an FPGA based fault recorder capable of recording fault transient signals on MV distribution systems for both single and double ended fault location schemes. The proposed platform consists of: a Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA device; Texas Instruments 125MSPS, 14 bit ADCs; Cypress 167MHz 2Mx18bits QDR memory; a high speed USB 2.0 link; and a GPS unit to provide accurate timestamps. The proposed system is capable of recording three current phases and three voltage phases simultaneously with the ability to set a pre gain for both current and voltage measurements independently.