A small-sample faulty line detection method based on generative adversarial networks

This paper presents a small-sample faulty line detection method for a small current grounded system (SCGS) using improved generative adversarial networks (GANs) to overcome the problems of low accuracy and poor economy associated with traditional methods. First, we collected real-time fault data of the dispatching system as the original sample and used the linear interpolation and normalization methods to preprocess the data. We extracted and labeled the features of the original sample to construct a feature vector that represents the single-phase grounded fault. Then, to solve the problem of insufficient faulty samples, this paper used the GAN to generate synthetic samples to expand the training sample size. To stabilize the GAN training, the Wasserstein distance was introduced to improve the GAN loss function (WGAN). Finally, for the synthetic samples, we used Batch Normalization (BN) and an Early Stopping algorithm to train the lightweight depthwise separable convolutional network (DSCN) classifier and obtain a faulty line detection model with fast convergence and high accuracy. With the data of an actual dispatching system in China as an example, the proposed method determined the faulty line within 100-200 ms with an accuracy of more than 96%, which is approximately 26% higher than the accuracy of traditional methods. Compared with mainstream machine learning algorithms, the proposed method realizes the self-extraction of faulty features and simplifies the algorithm. Moreover, the accuracy of the proposed method is much higher than that of other machine learning algorithms on small samples. It is worth noting that this method needs only the existing real-time dispatching data and does not need to install additional data acquisition and fault detection equipment, eliminating the complicated equipment installation and debugging process and greatly reducing equipment costs human operations and maintenance costs. The proposed method has been implemented in an actual power system in China for two years. The results show that it is highly accurate and cost-effective, performs well in real time, and has bright prospects for future applications.