System and Method of Detecting and Locating Intermittent Electrical Faults in Electrical Systems

• US 20100110900A1
• Filed: 10/31/2008
• Published: 05/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Howard University
• Original Assignee: Howard University
• Inventors: Kim, Charles J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,102,779 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/242
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/24 Testing correct operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0095 Ring

Abstract

Signals are transmitted from at least one transmitter that is positioned in an electrical network. The signals that have been transmitted are received by the at least one single receiver at a single receiver positioned within the electrical network. At the single receiver, the received signals are analyzed and a determination from the analyzing the received signals is made as to whether a fault has occurred in the electrical network.

Claims

1. A method of determining intermittent electrical faults comprising:

transmitting signals from a plurality of transmitters that are positioned in an electrical network;

receiving the signals transmitted by each of the plurality of transmitters at a single receiver positioned within the electrical network; and

at the single receiver, analyzing the received signals and determining from the analyzing of the received signals whether a fault has occurred in the electrical network.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein transmitting the signals comprises inserting a random pause duration between successively transmitted signals.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein each of the plurality of transmitters has an associated unique combination of bits that uniquely identifies the transmitter and wherein the unique combination bits is included in the signals sent to the receiver.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the receiver analyzes the received combination of bits and compares the combination of bits to an expected combination of bits and when there is not a match, determines that an electrical fault exist.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising determining the location of the electrical fault based upon the analyzing.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein transmitting the signals comprises receiving a command signal from the single receiver at a selected transmitter and only transmitting the signal from each of the selected transmitter to the single receiver when the command signal has been received at the selected transmitter.

7. A fault determination system comprising:

a plurality of transmitters, each of the plurality of transmitters configured to transmit signals across at least a portion of an electrical network; and

a single receiver communicatively coupled to the plurality of transmitters, the single receiver configured to receive the signals transmitted by each of the plurality of transmitters and to analyze the received signals and determine from analyzing the received signals when a fault has occurred in the electrical network.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the each of the plurality of transmitters is configured to insert a random pause duration between successively transmitted signals.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein each of the plurality of transmitters has a unique combination of bits that identifies each transmitter and the unique combination of bits is included in signals sent to the single receiver.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the single receiver is configured to analyze the received bits and to perform a comparison between the received bits to expected bits and when a match does not exist between the received bits and the expected bits, to determine that a fault exist.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the single receiver is configured to determine the location of the fault based upon the comparison between the received bits and the expected bits.

12. The system of claim 7 wherein each of the plurality of transmitters is configured to receive a command signal from the single receiver and to only transmit a signal to the single receiver after the command signals has been received.

13. The system of claim 7 further comprising an external device that is coupled to the single receiver.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the external device is selected from a group consisting of an enunciator, a display, and a computing device.