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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

Theoretical Fundamentals and Implementation

of Novel Self-Adaptive Distance Protection
Resistant to Power Swings
Xiangning Lin, Senior Member, IEEE, Zhengtian Li, Shuohao Ke, and Yan Gao
AbstractTo deal with the maloperation of distance protection
in the case of power swings, the criterion of concentric circle was
widely used. This criterion is implemented based on the time difference that the apparent impedance locus passes through boundaries of these two impedance circles. In many cases (e.g., a very fast
power swing), it will fail to block. Actually, with regard to different
moving loci, the time difference staying within the gap between two
circles and the corresponding time staying within the internal operating circle have an inherent relationship. In this paper, the aforementioned relationship is deliberately assumed and demonstrated.
The worst condition for the correct action of this criterion is presumed and proven, leading to the invention of novel distance protection which can operate rapidly during power swings. The necessary issues on the implementation of the proposed criterion are
discussed. Based on the result of the discussion, complete self-adaptive distance protection is put forward. On the basis of the aforementioned analysis, the availability and the feasibility of this novel
scheme are verified with the results of EMTDC simulations.
Index TermsDistance protection, power swing, power systems,
self-adaptive, swing locus.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE microcomputer has brought revolutionary creativity to

the design of protective relays[1]. A variety of protection
criteria that have ideal performance in theory but lack implementary means during the past time now are promising to be
implemented due to available reliable software and hardware
platforms. Correspondingly, the related work has been attached
with importance. However, other potential measures that can
Manuscript received August 21, 2009; revised November 19, 2009. First
published April 05, 2010; current version published June 23, 2010. This work
was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(50837002), in part by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-07-0325), in part by the National High Technology Research
and Development Program of China (2008AA05Z214), in part by the Major
State Basic Research Development Program (2009CB219700), and in part by
the State Grid Key Programs (SGKJJSKF (2008) 469 and the one approved in
2009). Paper no. TPWRD-00631-2009.
X. Lin is with the Electric Power Security and High Efficiency Lab,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074,
China and with the College of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, Hubei Province, China
(e-mail: linxiangning@hotmail.com).
Z. Li, S. Ke, and Y. Gao are with Electric Power Security and High Efficiency
Lab, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074,
China (e-mail: tianlz9806115@163.com; clint0774@sina.com; yaogao@mail.
hust.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2010.2043450

improve the performance of protection have been ignored inappropriately. For example, some theories are not consummate
enough during the period of analog-based protection. Once they
can be properly improved with the strong abilities of memorizing and calculating the microprocessor, their performances
are promising to attain or even exceed the level of state-ofthe-art protections. We are about to conduct some work on improving the operation performance of the distance protection
during power swings, for which no satisfactory solution is available until recently.
There are many causes resulting in the power swing [2].
When the swing center is located on the line being protected,
the swing locus will pass through the fast operation zone of
the distance protection, and the time of it staying within the
operation zone may be long. One existing and popular solution
in China is to block the fast protection for a period of time
when the power swing occurs. The supplementary criteria are
used to unblock the protection with a certain time delay after a
fault occurs during power swings. The existing practical criteria
,
,
, and
in China are dR/dt
so on [3]. Furthermore, many new algorithms to detect the
power swing and allow distance protection to operate relatively
fast dealing with the fault occurring during power swings are
proposed [4][9].
It should be admitted that the aforementioned criteria have
their disadvantages in some cases. For instance, the value of
dR/dt should be zero in theory when a fault occurs. However,
it could be a large number at the inception of the fault due
to transient, while it is small during some stages of power
swings (e.g., when the phase difference between two sources is
close to 180 ). In this sense, the discrimination between faults
and power swings becomes difficult. Therefore, a certain time
delay is inevitable for the protection to operate although the
unblocking condition is satisfied. As the criterion
uses as the restraint quantity, the time delay may be long in
some fault conditions. Meanwhile, a three-phase short-circuit
fault cannot be identified by this criterion. Lacking profound
analysis of the power swing process, no strict theoretical fundamental exists on how to set the operation threshold and the time
delay, together with the coordination of the operation threshold
and the time delay of the aforementioned criteria. These key
parameters are always adjusted according to tests and field conditions, which may lead to improper settings. Therefore, how to
ensure the operation reliability of the distance protection during
power swings is still a problem that deserves to be studied.
During the age of analog quantity-based protection, the criterion of concentric-circle was widely used [10]. That is, a

0885-8977/$26.00 2010 IEEE

LIN et al.: FUNDAMENTALS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A NOVEL SELF-ADAPTIVE DISTANCE PROTECTION

Fig. 1. Apparent impedance locus viewed at side M during power swings.

power swing blocking relay is arranged to encircle the measuring unit (e.g., the Zone I relay, as shown in Fig. 1). The principle of this method will be deliberated in the following section.
Due to its drawbacks due to resolution of the time interval limited by the hardware, this criterion is abandoned by some protection manufacturers. Actually, by means of the studies on the
changing laws of impedance during power swings, this drawback is not difficult to be overcome, and the rationally modified
criterion will have better sensitivity and selectivity than most
existing criteria.

II. ANALYSIS OF POWER SWING LOCUS

The power swing is always estimated by means of the observation of the changing laws of the apparent impedance on the
(R, X) plane, as shown in Fig. 1.
Set the concentric circles on the (R, X) plane. The internal
distance relay, whose diameter is
circle is the zone I of
generally 0.8 times the impedance of the line. The external circle
,
has the same center as the small one, and its diameter is
corresponding to the zone II offset impedance circle. Set the radius of the external circle as and the radius of the small one
as . When the system operates normally, the phase difference
between the equivalent sources at two ends is small and invariable, and the coordinates of the apparent impedance always locate stably on a position far from these two concentric circles.
This phase difference increases gradually when a power swing
occurs. Correspondingly, the apparent impedance begins to approach the two concentric circles on the plane (R, X). The Zone
I protection may maloperate only when the swing locus passes
across the gap between the external circle and the internal circle
in a very short time and enter the internal circle in that this scenario is considered as an occurrence of fault. As for the simplicity of the analysis, the swing locus is regarded as a circle or
a beeline. First of all, the condition of beeline is investigated.
Set the real line ABCD in Fig. 1 to be a moving trace of the apparent impedance passing through the center of the two circles
during a power swing. It intersects with the two circles at A,
is an arbitrary
B, C, D, respectively. The dashed line
swing locus which does not pass through the center. It intersects with the two circles at
, and intersects with
. The apparent
the vertical halving line of BC, called EF, at

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. In terms of universalimpedance is denoted as

ities, we assume the locus of the apparent impedance to be the
dashed line in Fig. 1.
at
during power
The phase difference increases to
swings, and the moving locus intersects with the external
circle. At this time, the impedance relay corresponding to the
external circle is at the critical operation point. At , the phase
difference continues augmenting to , and it intersects with the
internal circle. The Zone I distance relay operates at this time.
Afterwards, keeps on augmenting, and the zone I distance
protection keeps operating during this period of time. At
, the angle increases to , and the operation of the internal
circle resets. After that, the operation of the external circle
resets when the phase difference reaches . Then, keeps on
augmenting to 360 , and a swing cycle is finished.
According to the aforementioned analysis, the time interval
of the apparent impedance locus crossing the external circle and
, and the time
the internal circle successively is
. Hence, in
of it staying in the internal circle is
a certain swing cycle, when the moving locus of the apparent
impedance approaches the two concentric circles in any direction, only three possibilities exist, as follows.
and
do not start the timer.
1) Both
2)
is equal to zero but
is unequal to zero.
and
are unequal to zero.
3) Both
Obviously, condition 1 and 2 will not lead the protection to
is not equal to zero
maloperation. Generally, as long as
(when condition 3 is satisfied), the distance protection (especially the fast zone) always possibly maloperates.
will not be zero when the power swing center locates
within the protected line. The criterion of concentric-circle
is realized by the analog-based protections on the basis of the
aforementioned fact. Generally speaking, this scheme has the
following shortcomings: as the low precision of the time relay
is shorter than the minof analog-based protections, when
imum resolvability of the time relay due to very fast swing, the
blocking may be disabled and the protection is mistakenly unblocked and then maloperates. On the other hand, if the developing speed of the fault is slow during the power swing,
will be larger than the setting, leading the fault to being mistakenly identified as a swing, and the protection will be wongfully
blocked. Hence, the application of the swing blocking measures
based on this criterion cannot be regarded as a successful application in China.
and
have the determinative relationship in an
In fact,
individual swing cycle. During the process of swing, if a continuous sampling can be realized (i.e., the sampling cycle is an inalways has a certain value and
will
finitesimal number,
not be infinite when the swing locus passes through the center
always has a maximum. If
of the circle). Therefore,
can be
this maximum can be found, a protection delay
added according to the latest value of
, making it avoid this
short-time swing state leading to the maloperation of the protection. If so, during any process of power swings, the protection
can be reliably blocked. On the other hand, when an internal
fault occurs during power swings, in most cases, the protection
can trip with appropriate speed and with satisfactory selectivity.
The analysis is provided as follows.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

If the apparent impedance is located outside the external circle

at the time exactly before an internal fault occurs, the apparent
impedance will generally pass through the gap between the two
concentric circles and fall into the internal circle, leading to a very
(inmostcases,
0).Inthisscenario,theadditional
small
time delay is very short, and this is the condition of most occurring
faults. Hence, this criterion will allow the protection to trip rapidly
under the condition of internal faults during power swings. If an
external fault occurs, the apparent impedance will not fall into the
internal circle (i.e., the operating zone). Therefore, this criterion
has natural selectivity. Only under the following extreme conditions will the time delay of the protection be prolonged. That is,
an internal fault occurs under the condition of a slow power swing
and, at this time, the moving locus of the apparent impedance just
may be a
falls into the internal circle critically. In this case,
significant number, leading to a large calculated
, so the
corresponding additional time delay may be long. However, by
means of correct coordination with every existing swing blocking
criterion, this problem is not hard to solve. The solution rests in
that this criterion is taken as the main criterion, and the existing
and
are taken as the supplecriteria of
ments. When the operation condition of the external circle is not
satisfied, the protections affected by power swings are always not
blocked. In this case, the unnecessary blocking of the protection is
avoided. Only when the operation condition of the external circle
is satisfied, will all of the protections affected by power swings be
and
, together
blocked for security. Then,
with the criterion proposed before, are enabled simultaneously.
An OR logic is used as the unblocking condition of protections.
is small, the proposed criterion can unblock the protecIf
is large as long as the operation conditions
tion rapidly; if
of the else criteria are satisfied, the protection will be unblocked
as soon as possible as well. Of course, the settings of the aforementioned three protections must ensure that under any possible
system power swing scenario, the protections cannot be allowed
to trip by mistake. It can be seen from the aforementioned analysis
that the ability of coordination and supplementing other existing
criteria is a significant advantage of this criterion.
Therefore, the following work rests with the affirmation
achieving the
and validation of the condition of
maximum.
III. CONDITION OF THE MAXIMUM VALUE
OF
AND ITS VALIDATION
As the theoretical fundamental of the following analysis of
applications, a proposition needs to be testified: the swing locus
incises the two concentric circles on (R, X) plane, leading three
line segments to occur within two concentric circles, as indicated in Fig. 1. We assume that the length of the line segment
(arc or beeline) in the internal circle is , and the length of the
line segments (arc or beeline) between two circles, which should
be two line segments, is . Correspondingly, the time interval
of the apparent impedance across the two circles successively
, and the time staying in the internal circle is
is
. Then, we have the following assumption:
(1)

Fig. 2. Apparent impedance locus in the condition of EM=EN

= 1.

The demonstration of (1) is presented as below, which is divided into two scenarios.
The first scenario is that the locus is an arbitrary beeline
passing through the two concentric circles.
The aforementioned condition is that the ratio of the magnitudes of the electromotive forces (emfs) of the two side systems
is 1. The vector illustrations of all impedances in the system are
shown in Fig. 2, observed from the position where the protection
is installed. In this figure, the impedance angle of the system is
assumed to be equal to the impedance angle of the line. The apparent impedance can be expressed as
(2)
where
is the total impedance connected between two
equivalent sources, is the phase-angle difference between two
sources. And is the ratio of the system equivalent impedance
of the system at end , accounting for the total impedance
connected between two equivalent sources.
According to the knowledge of geometry, the swing locus
always vertically halves the vector line of the system total
, and the projection of the apparent impedance
impedance
, while the
on the swing locus line is
projection on the line of the system total impedance is
. Assume that the locus line intersects with
the circle at A, B, C, and D successively at , , , and
respectively, the corresponding phase differences are , ,
, and . Then, it intersects with the line of the system total
when
. The lengths of line segments
impedance at
and
can be calculated as follows:
(3)
(4)
Hence
(5)

LIN et al.: FUNDAMENTALS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A NOVEL SELF-ADAPTIVE DISTANCE PROTECTION

As MN halves the concentric circles, ABCD is vertical to

and
superposes
. Therefore,
is halved by
, and we have
(6)
In most cases, is close to 180 when the swing locus approaches the circles, hence
(7)
According to (7), we have
(8)
(9)
Apparently,

is an isoceles triangle.
, then
(10)

and
(11)
Substituting it into (9), we then have
(12)
and
(13)

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systems are connected with such a weak link. The simplification resulting from the second scenario is a little bit deviated
from the practical electromechanical transient process. During
the time between the swing occurrence and the fastest swing
appearance, the relative movement of the phase differences of
the two systems is generally an accelerating process, while the
relative movement of the phase differences will enter a decelerating process if the system can eventually restore to stable.
However, because of the existence of inertia, their evolution is
doomed to be smooth whether it is a process of destabilization
or recovery, especially when the swing gradually subsides. As
for the evolution of a power swing, the time of the swing locus
passing through the first-half circle (including the gap between
two circles) will be longer than it passing through the last half
circle (according to the basic knowledge of physics, during
the period of accelerating movement in the case of passing
through the same distance, the time required by the last half
tenor will be shorter than that required by the first-half one).
In this case, the criterion has higher security because
is set according to
of the first-half circle. The operation
of the criterion in the regressive process of the power swing
should be focused on. In most cases, the regressive of the swing
is realized by a variety of safety automatic devices and correct
manual interventions, which means that the adjusting process
will be smooth and change slowly. In an individual swing cycle
(compared with the whole swing process, this is a relatively
short period of time), treating the phase difference relative
movement as a uniform speed movement will not lead to a great
error. On the other hand, even when the rare operation mode
and the system swing rapid cessation phenomena occurs, it will
also be handled properly, which will be discussed in Section IV.
The second scenario: The locus is a circle.
According to [10], in fact, the circle is the measuring locus of
, the center of the circle is

According to

(16)
(14)
And the radius is

We have
(15)
Thus, the first scenario is validated.
Now let us simply discuss the rationality of the aforementioned simplification. Equation (7) means that the swing locus
passes through the concentric circles only when is in the
vicinity of 180 . And the application of (14) indicates that
during every swing cycle, the swing is regarded as an invariable
speed moving process. As for the first scenario resulting from
(7), if the system can be equalized to two infinite systems via
a single and very long transmission line, which is an unusual
condition, the scenario of the swing locus falling into the
circles when just exceeds 90 possibly occurs. At this time,
the aforementioned simplification will definitely bring large
error. However, by virtue of the usual knowledge of power
system operation, it is very irrational that the two very strong

(17)

and
are the electromotive forces (emfs)s of the equivalent sources on the two sides. Generally, even under the condition of power swings, the discrepancy of the magnitudes of them
. Therefore,
.
is not large although
From (16) and (17), the center of that circle is far from the origin
of the impedance plane, and the radius is very long. In general
is much smaller than R, it is acceptable to
conditions, since
approximately regard the moving locus of
as a circle. Due
to the properties of the center and the radius of the circle, the
locus is still capable of being treated as a beeline when analyzing its operation behavior near zone I impedance circle. In

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

this case, the validation is naturally accomplished according to

the demonstration on the first scenario.
can be evaluated by the
To summarize, the value of
ratio of the corresponding line segments or lengths of arcs when
the swing locus incises the concentric circles. Hence, the search
can be converted to the following
of the maximum of
problem:
An arbitrary beeline or circle is utilized to incise the concentric circles. Let the length of the line segment (beeline or arc) in
the internal circle be , and the length of the line segment between two circles (beeline or arc) be . Then, we should make
it clear which kind of locus (beeline or circles) should be utito
lized and how to incise the concentric circles to allow
achieve the maximum.
will
The following assumption will be validated, that is,
achieve the maximum if the swing locus is a beeline and it passes
through the center of the concentric circles.
For the convenience of the validation, the aforementioned
problem can be represented as proposition 1 as follows:
always comes to existence when
a beeline or a circle is used to incise the concentric circles. The
corresponding verification can refer to the Appendix.
In the case of the aforementioned proposition being tenable,
,
for the adaptive swing identification criterion formed by
the scenario that the swing locus can be regarded a beeline
passing through the center of the concentric circles is the
strictest validation condition for the criterion.
IV. ISSUES ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CRITERION
In event of the implementation of the proposed criterion,
it should be investigated that in every operation mode of the
will increase when
system, whether the maximum of
the aforementioned unwanted power swing occurs, and if it
does, what value it will reach.
As indicated by (2), the moving locus of the apparent
impedance can be assumed to be a beeline passing through the
(set it to be
) and being
end point of vector
vertical to it. Generally, the radius of the concentric circles is set
and
, respectively. Assume that the
as
locus passing through the center of the concentric circles ,
from the origin.
and
consist of a beeline,
that is,
and the swing locus is determined by this beeline. A circle
has the uniform characteristic in all directions although this
beeline can pass through the center of the concentric circles in
different directions. For the sake of simplification, the resistive
components of the lines and the system are ignored in the
discussion, and the relay characteristic can be revised and as
shown in Fig. 3.
and
are both located on the X axis, and the locus
Now
line is in parallel with axis R. Since the beeline can intersect with
and
are the identical
axis X at only one point, therefore,
one. In this case, the system impedances on the two sides are
and
, respectively, and the impedance of the line is
,
then

Fig. 3. Apparent impedance locus during power swings when ignoring the resistances of all components in the system.

is the swing locus line passing through the center

of the concentric circles. Assume that the moving locus intersects with the external circle at A when the phase difference between the sources at two ends achieves at , and the moving
locus intersects with the internal circle at B when the phase difference increases to at , leading to the operation of zone I
distance protection. Further, we assume that the locus intersects
with the internal circle at C when the phase difference increases
to at . In this case, the operation criterion of zone I distance
relay resets. Thereinto, and are symmetrical with respect
are
to 180 . If so, the lengths of line segments
the real parts of the apparent impedances when the phase difference between two systems increases to , , and , respectively. Seen from the figure, they are the radius of the external
is the time
circle or the internal one. In this case,
interval between the operation time of the criterion of the external circle and that of the criterion of the internal circle, and
is the operation time within the internal circle.
It has been proven in Section III that when the swing locus is
a beeline passing through the center, we have
(19)
In fact, (19) comes into existence only when is close to
180 . The locus will possibly fall into the operation circle in
the event of , far from 180 if the system impedances on the
two sides are very small. Therefore, when implementing this
changing with respect to
criterion, the maximum of
the system impedance should be reviewed. According to (18),
we have

(20)

and

(21)

Furthermore, we have
(22)

(18)
where

(23)

LIN et al.: FUNDAMENTALS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A NOVEL SELF-ADAPTIVE DISTANCE PROTECTION

Fig. 4. Variation of

1t =1t

As

with

08

: X

=X

, we have

(24)
Actually,
Hence, only when

.
, we have
(25)

Equation (24) is appropriate when

Set
, Then

is comparable to

(26)
As the end point of the locus reaches the center of the circle,
we have
(27)
and
(28)
Then, the range of x is
.
It is very difficult to evaluate the monotony of (26) using the
analytic method. Knowing the definition area, the observation
can be made by virtue of the illustrative method. According to
) can be obtained, as
(26), the changing curve of (x,
shown in Fig. 4.
increases monotonously with the
It can be seen that
increase of . That is, the smaller the impedances on the two
sides (the larger the system capacity) is, the larger the multiple
will be, but the maximum of it cannot exceed 6. Hence, if mulwith a limited coefficient a little greater than 6, the
tiplying
maloperation of the distance protection when the swing locus
passes through the internal circle can be reliably avoided.
An additional reliable coefficient of 1.5 can be used in view
that the inconsistent impedance angles of all the components
in the system leading to the actual swing locus are uneven.
In addition, the process of power swings is not a movement
in uniform speed. In view of the aforementioned factors, the
restrained coefficient is increased to 9. Therefore, the corresponding self-adaptive criterion is described as follows.
and
During the initialization, we reset the counters of
, and set
and
to the full scale
and
,

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respectively, where the full scale should be a very large initial

value (such as 9999).
When the fault occurs, all of the fast protections detect the
fault according to the existing operation logics. The fault will
be cleared if it satisfies the criterion of the protection.
A one-cycle discrete Fourier algorithm, in which the time
window is one power-frequency cycle that is 20 ms for a 50-Hz
power frequency, is used to calculate the apparent impedance
of every single-phase impedance relay when the data window is
fulfilled with the fault dada. If hardware speed is fast enough,
all of the calculations can be finished in one sampling interval,
and the locus of the impedance can be tracked continuously.
Then, the locus of apparent impedance is monitored. If this
locus does not enter the external circle, the two counters will
not count.
As designed and described before, the protection will be
cannot reach the full scale. In this
blocked all the time if
case, if the locus only passes through the external circle, only
counts. Under the condition of normal power swings, the
locus will go out of the external circle even if
is far from
its full scale. Then, these two timers reset presently, and the
protection is blocked correctly all of the time. If the locus passes
through the external circle and the internal circle at the same
to stoptime, at the time it enters the internal circle, leading
. Then,
ping counting, and assigning the latest value to
with the restraint coefficient 9, and assign
we multiply
. Under the condition of normal power swings and
it to
general system parameters, if the sampling rate is high enough
is 0.5 ms in this paper),
will
(the sampling cycle
always be nonzero, and the time the swing locus staying within
. Only a
the internal circle will not always exceed
special condition should be considered particularly, that is,
when the systems on the two sides are both small systems, the
protected line is very short, and an ultra-high speed (the swing
cycle is shorter than 0.08 s) swing occurs. In this case,
may be smaller than one
and it is wrongly perceived as not
and
as being set as
counting, which will lead
zero. In this case, the time-delay element becomes invalidated.
can be forced to
In order to overcome this problem,
be
when
does not count. Then, this value is recorded
, and the corresponding time
to be the minimum of
. Certainly, if the time of the swing locus staying
delay is
between the two circles is less than , the time of it staying
within the internal circle is definitely less than
. With this
ms), under any
small inherent time delay (4.5 ms for
system swing condition, the security of the protection can be
ensured. In order to further improve the security, the minimum
, that is, min
, can be increased properly
of
). In the following simulation tests, the min
(e.g., 2 or 3
is set to
.
In practical applications, the sensitivity of the fault pickup
element during the swing should be increased to some extent.
After catching the starting time, the DFT algorithm should not
be enabled until the data window is completely filled with the
postfault data. If this event is caused by a disturbance, the locus
of the apparent impedance still satisfies the rules of swing. However, under most internal fault conditions, that is, the apparent
impedance is initially out of the external circle when a fault oc-

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

curs during swings, the apparent impedance will directly drop

into somewhere within the internal circle. If the discrete Fourier
transform (DFT) algorithm is utilized, the operation time of the
24.5 ms. Compared with the
protection is up to
condition of a fault occurring during the normal operation state,
the operating speed of the protection in this case is competitive.
Only two cases may lead to the unnecessary time delay. One
is slowly evolving faults, leading to the relatively long time of
the apparent impedance staying in the internal circle; the other
undesirable condition rests with the locus of the swing passing
through the external circle but only being tangent to the internal
circle. Assume that an internal fault occurring at the time the
will
locus is about to depart the external circle. In this case,
and correspondingly
and
attain to the maximum.
will be long if the line impedance is far greater than the
system impedance and the swing cycle is very long. However,
as stated before, an advantage of this criterion rests with the
ability of coordinating with other criteria. The protection will
be unblocked as well even if only one of the criteria, such as
and
operates. It should also be pointed
out that this criterion will never unblock incorrectly when external faults occur, and this selectivity is not possessed by other
criteria.
In a word, only under the extreme condition, the performance
of this criterion is a little deficient to other criteria. However, by
virtue of the logic cooperation, the superiority of this criterion
can be highlighted completely. Moreover, it should be pointed
out that the security of the existing schemes will not be reduced
even combined with the proposed scheme and, in most cases,
the sensitivity of the protection for the faults in power swings
can be increased.
For the purpose of clear description and summarization, the
proposed scheme is illustrated in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Flowchart diagram of the proposed criterion.

V. SIMULATION VALIDATION
A. Description of the Simulation Model
By virtue of PSCAD/EMTDC, the simulation model of a typical 500-kV transmission system is set up. The model system
consists of an 800-MVA generator supplying power to an infinite bus. The generator is connected to the infinite bus through a
transformer and a 500-kV, 340-km double-circuit transmission
line as illustrated in Fig. 6 [11]. The distance relay is installed
at point R3. A disturbance is evoked by a three-phase fault occurring at F1 on circuit 1, which is cleared after a time delay of
300 ms by means of opening the breaker CB1 to disconnect the
faulty line. This disturbance will cause the generator to accelerate or decelerate, resulting in a power swing. The parameters
of each circuit of the transmission line are indicated in Fig. 6.
Fig. 7 shows the Aphase current during a full power
swing. Fig. 8 presents the apparent impedance locus passing
through the concentric circle during the shortest cycle of a power
swing. The simulation results show in the whole swing process,
the protection is always kept stable.
It should be pointed out that the time cost from the beginning
of the swing to the fastest swing is 1.2 s, and the time cost from
the fastest swing to the ceasing of it is 1.8 s. Indeed, the power
swing fades very fast (generally speaking, the complete ceasing

Fig. 6. System model to evoke the power swings.

Fig. 7. A phase current during a full power swing.

of the swing needs a period of time ranging from several seconds

to more than 10 s). It means that in every swing cycle, the time
that the locus passes through the later semicircle is remarkably
more slowly than the actual condition.
Changing the system impedance, the length of the line, the
maximal and the minimal swing cycle, hundreds of simulation
cases have been performed. Under the scenarios of the pure

LIN et al.: FUNDAMENTALS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A NOVEL SELF-ADAPTIVE DISTANCE PROTECTION

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Fig. 11. Phase-angle variation of the apparent impedance in nine cycles of the
postfault period.
Fig. 8. Apparent impedance locus passing through the concentric circle during
the minimal cycle of a power swing.

Fig. 9. A phase current in the condition of a three-phase fault occurring

during a full power swing.

Fig. 10. Magnitude variation of the apparent impedance in nine cycles of the
postfault period.

power swing, the distance protection is all kept stable and the
security of the criterion is validated.
The sensitivity of the criterion is validated as well as presented below.
A variety of faults is applied on circuit 2 during the following
power swing. All faults on circuit 2 are applied when the phaseangle difference between the two side systems is close to 180 .
An extensive series of fault scenarios is carried out on the model
system.
First of all, typical cases are investigated. Assume a threephase short-circuit fault occurring on the line, of which 20% is
the line length to the relay. The occurrence of time the fault is
2.22 s. Fig. 9 shows the waveform of A phase current.
According to the proposed criterion, within ten cycles
after the fault starts, the magnitude and phase of the apparent
impedance changing with time and the locus of the apparent
impedance on the impedance plane are shown in Figs. 1012.
As indicated in these figures, the magnitude of the apparent
impedance is located around 20.2 with a fluctuation of 1.0 ,
and the phase of the apparent impedance fluctuates around 84

Fig. 12. Variation of the apparent impedance in the R-X phase plane between
the pickup and the tripping of the protection.

with a scope of 3 . In fact, at the rated power frequency, the measured impedance from the fault point to the relay accounts for
. This
20% of the total impedance of the line, that is,
is because no frequency tracking is adopted in the simulation,
and the sampling rate is at a fixed 0.5 ms. Under the condition of
frequency deviation, the one-cycle power-frequency component
cannot be included in the data window of 20 ms, which results
in the fluctuation of a measured value. Actually, the frequency
tracking and the fixed cycle sampling have been successfully
applied in protection devices. It is not difficult to overcome the
aforementioned shortcomings in the real applications. For the
magnitude of the impedance tending to be higher than the actual value, it can also be explained in terms of frequency. After a
three-phase short circuit occurs, the system is separated into two
irrelevant parts by the fault point. The angular frequency of
where the protection equipped is no
the apparent reactance
. It is determined by the current frequency
longer equal to
of the source on side . Since the frequency of the source on
is increasing, the frequency of the system on this side is
side
more than 50 Hz, and the corresponding calculated value of the
reactance also tends to be higher. It indicates the importance of
frequency measuring. If the present exact frequency is known,
the calculated results can be converted to the value under the
rated power frequency condition. When compared with the settings, the scenarios of fail-to-trip or overreach can be avoided.
Since the fault point is far from the operation boundary, by virtue
of the self-adaptive criterion, the apparent impedance will enter
the internal circle immediately. After the time delay of 9.5 ms
(without including the data in a cycle required by the one-cycle
Fourier algorithm), the protection operates correctly.
The asymmetric fault conditions are further investigated. By
changing the three-phase fault to a single-phase grounded one,
other conditions are kept. The moving locus of the apparent

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

Fig. 13. Variation of the apparent impedance in the R-X phase plane after a
three-phase fault occurring at the 70% line length near side .

impedance after the fault starts can also be obtained. According to the measuring results, the magnitude of the apparent
impedance fluctuates around 20.8 with a scope of 2.8 , and
the phase of the apparent impedance fluctuates around 82 with
a scope of 7 Compared with the three-phase fault, the error of
the apparent impedance in the direction of R axis increases, and
the measuring of phase also has an error of 3 . The stability of
the measuring result becomes worse. Obviously, in the scenario
of asymmetric faults, the polarized current of the single-phase
relay includes zero-sequence components, and the frequency of
the swing currents of sound phases is different from the faulty
phasethe cause leading to the error is more complicated
and more difficult to analyze. However, when the impedance
of the faulty circuit is located far away from the operation
boundary, the small magnitude fluctuation will not affect the
correct operation of the protection. The protection still operates
correctly with an additional time delay of 9.5 ms at this time.
Ulteriorly, we investigate the operation behavior of the criterion
when the fault point is near the operation boundary. Assume a
three-phase short circuit occurs at 70% of the line. The moving
locus of the apparent impedance after the fault starts is shown
in Fig. 13.
The operation boundary circle is actually set according to the
impedance in the condition of rated power frequency. Therefore, during the transient stage, as the technique of frequency
tracking is not utilized, several points of the apparent impedance
have fallen within the boundary circle, leading to wobble. The
additional time delay is just 10.5 ms although the time delay is
inevitable in this condition. If the operation boundary circle can
be adjusted dynamically according to the frequency on this side,
this wobble phenomenon can be completely avoided.
Furthermore, the case of the fault occurring at 90% of the
line length to the relay is studied. The locus of the apparent
impedance is shown in Fig. 14. Obviously, as the frequency of
this side tends to be higher and the operation boundary circle is
not enlarged correspondingly, the protection will not be prone to
maloperate due to external faults. However, when the frequency
decreases, the operating security problem of the distance protection on this side should be taken into account. Therefore, it
is necessary to measure the frequency correctly and adjust the
operation boundary circle correspondingly.
By virtue of changing the parameters of the system and the
power swing, the selectivity and sensitivity of this criterion for

Fig. 14. Variation of the apparent impedance in the R-X phase plane after a
three-phase fault occurring at 90% of the line length near side .

the faults during power swings have been validated. Part of the
results are presented in Table I. Except for a few high resistance
grounded faults making the criterion fail to trip because of their
apparent impedances falling out of the operation circle, the identification results of majority of the results are satisfying. Among
them, the operating times of the scenarios in which the protection can trip are all less than 30 ms.
VI. CONCLUSION
Different from the conventional criterion of concentric-circle, which is designed to measure the time interval
when the swing locus passes across the gap between two circles
to block the distance protection, this time interval is utilized to
design distance protection which can keep high security during
power swings and trip relatively fast for a variety of internal
faults during power swings. In this paper, a phenomenon is first
discovered where the ratio of the time of the swing locus staying
in the internal circle and the time of it passing through the concentric circles is a limited number and a maximum always
exists when it passes across concentric circles. According to the
time of it passing across the gap between two circles multiplied
by this maximum, the additional time delay can be accordingly
set to ensure the security of the protection. Comparatively, for
the scenario of internal faults occurring during power swings,
the time of the impedance locus passing through the gap between two circles is zero in theory, which makes the additional
time delay zero and allows the protection to trip rapidly. The
main contribution of this paper rests with the demonstration
and quantification of the aforementioned maximum ratio. The
conditions of the existence of the aforementioned maximum
are clarified and proven in this paper, which provides the mathematical fundamentals for the implementation of the criterion.
Discussions are made under every possible system operating
state and power swing mode to determine the appropriate
maximum. Based on the aforementioned discovery, a novel fast
self-adaptive distance protection is proposed. EMTDC-based
simulation tests demonstrate: This criterion has sufficient
security under any system swing conditions. When an internal
fault occurs during swings, as long as the fault resistance is not
very large, allowing the apparent impedance to fall inside the
operation circle, it has the highest sensitivity among all of the
existing criteria. In addition, the shortcoming of this criterion
can be remedied with coordination of other criteria.

LIN et al.: FUNDAMENTALS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A NOVEL SELF-ADAPTIVE DISTANCE PROTECTION

1381

TABLE I
OPERATION BEHAVIOR OF THE PROPOSED CRITERION IN THE CASE OF A VARIETY OF FAULT SCENARIOS

APPENDIX
In the following, we will verify such a proposition as follows:
(29)
where , , , and are defined in Sections II and III.
The verification is classified into two parts.
The first scenario: the swing locus is a beeline.
of
In Fig. 1, the beeline ABCD passes through the center
the concentric circles, and
also passes through the
concentric circles but without passing the center. We need to
.
prove
is the diameter of the internal circle, and
is the
string of the internal circle, we have
(30)
For the triangle
,
, therefore
and

(31)
Combined with (30), the verification is finished.
The second scenario: the swing locus is a circle. In this case,
the verification can be carried out in terms of three aspects.
Case 1) The locus of the circle passes the center of the concentric circles, as shown in the upward part of Fig. 15.
, the radius is ,
As seen, the center of the locus circle is
and it passes the center of the concentric circles . Since every
direction of a circle is of the same nature, whether the concentric
circles have an excursion angle or not, and regardless of the direction the locus circle intersects with the concentric circles, the
will
connecting line between the two centers of the circles
halves the three circles in two parts symmetrically. By virtue of

Fig. 15. Equivalent transform of the apparent impedance locus in the condition
of line impedance angle unequal to 90 .

rotation and parallel moving,

superposes axis X, then the
discussion can be carried out, as shown in the downward part of
Fig. 15. For the purpose of clear illustration, the semicircle of
the locus circle is shown. In this case, the locus circle intersects
with the concentric circles at A and B, respectively.
In this case, proposition 1 is validated if
can be proven.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010

comes into existence in the

event of
if
and
are two arcs of a circle
and
are the corresponding strings.
and
Case 2) The peak point of the locus circle locates above the
center of the concentric circles . The center of this circle
is
, and the radius is still . It intersects with the concentric circles at B and C, respectively, as the real line in Fig. 16.
needs to be validated as follows.
According to the aforementioned deduction, we have
.
Then, we only need to prove
be , then the length of
Let the length of
Let
,
,
,
and
, we have

.
is

.
for

(39)

Fig. 16. Apparent impedance locus not passing through the center of the concentric circle.

For

and

, we have

As
and
,
The proposition can be transformed to

(40)
(32)
Combining (39) with (40), we have
,

Due to

(41)
We have
(33)

In order to allow
following equation should be satisfied:

to be validated, the

The proposition can be converted to

(42)
(34)
That is
Let
, only the following assumption is needed to
prove for the purpose of final verification of the proposition due
:
to
increases monotonously when
.
can be given by
The derivative of
(35)
Set
(36)
(37)
Therefore,

increases monotonously, and

, then
(38)

Therefore,
increases monotonously. The validation is finished.
From the aforementioned validation, the following deduction
can be made

(43)
As
and
are the radiuses of the external circle and the
internal circle, respectively, (43) is naturally satisfied and the
verification is completed.
is located below
Case 3) the peak point of locus circle
the center of the concentric circles . The center of this circle
, and the radius is still . It intersects with the concenis
tric circles at , , respectively, as the dashed line in Fig. 16.
needs to be validated as follows.
According to the aforementioned deduction
comes into existence, and only
needs to be validated.
Let the length of
be , then the length of
. Let
,
,
, for
and
, we have

is
,

(44)

LIN et al.: FUNDAMENTALS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A NOVEL SELF-ADAPTIVE DISTANCE PROTECTION

For

and

, we have

(45)

Combining (44) with (45), we have

(46)

According to (42) and (43), the proposition is validated.

1383

[8] P. E. J. Mooney and N. Fischer, Application guidelines for power

swing detection on transmission systems, in Proc. 59th Annu. Conf.
Protective Relay Engineers, 2006, pp. 159168.
[9] J. Blumschein, Y. Yelgin, and M. Kereit, Proper detection and treatment of power swing to reduce the risk of blackouts, in Proc. 3rd Int.
Conf. Deregulation and Restructuring and Power Technologies, 2008,
pp. 24402446.
[10] S. Zhu, Principles and Applications of Protective Relaying of HighVoltage Grid (in Chinese). Beijing, China: China Power Press, 1995.
[11] L. Zou, Q. Zhao, and X. Lin et al., Improved phase selector for unbalanced faults during power swings using morphological technique,
IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 18471855, Oct. 2006.
Xiangning Lin (SM08) received the M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees in electrical engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST),
Wuhan, China, respectively.
Currently, he is a Professor with HUST and with Three Gorges University,
Yichang, China. His research interests are modern signal processing and its
applications

REFERENCES
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[3] Z. Shengshi, G. Qun, Zheng, and Li, New swing-blocking methods
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[4] H. Khoradshadi-Zadeh, Evaluation and performance comparison of
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[5] M. J. Reddy and D. K. Mohanta, Adaptive-neuro-fuzzy inference
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[6] S. M. Brahma, Distance relay with out-of-step blocking function
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Zhengtian Li received the B.Sc. degree from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
in 2002, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical power
engineering.
His research interests include digital protection relaying, power system
control.

Shuohao Ke was born in ZheJiang Province, China, in 1973. He is currently

pursuing the Ph.D degree at the College of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan.
His research interests are power system analysis, application of wireless
sensor networks in power systems, electric power information technology, and
ultrawideband systems.

Yan Gao received the B.Sc. degree from Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China, in 2004, where she is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree in electrical power engineering.
Her research interests include digital protection relaying, control, and numerical methods in fields.