Wire fault locating in distributed power systems

摘要

An electrical fault locating system (10) for distributing power (12) from an input to a plurality of output channels (14) provides fault detection and locating for each of the plurality of output channels. Each of the plurality of output channels is monitored by a fault detection circuit (22) to detect the presence of an electrical fault. In response to a detected fault condition, the fault detection circuit isolates the output channel from the input and generates an output identifying the output channel on which the fault was detected. A fault locating device (24) injects a high-frequency (HF) signal onto the input of the electrical system, the HF signal is distributed to each of the plurality of output channels, and the monitored reflection of the HF signal is monitored by the fault locating device to calculate a distance to the detected fault. The distance calculated by the fault locating device is combined with the channel identification provided by the fault detection circuit to generate a specific location associated with the detected fault.