3376 A. K. Chaou et al.

: Recurrence Quantification Analysis as a Novel LC Feature Extraction Technique

Recurrence Quantification Analysis as a Novel LC Feature

Extraction Technique for the Classification of Pollution
Severity on HV Insulator Model
A. K. Chaou, A. Mekhaldi and M. Teguar
Laboratoire de Recherche en Electrotechnique
Ecole Nationale Polytechnique d’Alger
10 Avenue Hassen Badi, B.P 182, El-Harrach, 16200 Algiers, Algeria.

ABSTRACT
Recently, Recurrent Plot (RP) was introduced to study Leakage Current (LC) for
polluted insulator performance monitoring. Based on complex graphical representations,
RP only provides a qualitative overview of the insulator state. To overcome this issue, we
present in this paper a novel technique, named Recurrence Quantification Analysis
(RQA) able not only to indicate RP structures, but also to quantify LC dynamics during
the contamination process. RQA is introduced to investigate RP structures, quantify LC
dynamics and extract features from LC waveforms for polluted insulator monitoring and
performance diagnostic. For this purpose, LC acquisition is firstly carried out on a plan
insulator model uniformly polluted with saline solution. Eight RQA indicators are
presented to investigate LC waveforms under various pollution conductivities. Finally,
mean values of RQA indicators are proposed as input for three well-known classification
methods (K-Nearest Neighbors, Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machines) in order to
classify the contamination severity into five classes. Results show excellent correlation
between RQA indicators and the pollution severity level.
Index Terms - Leakage current, recurrent plot, recurrence quantification analysis,
feature extraction, polluted insulator monitoring, classification methods.

1 INTRODUCTION amplitude of LC and the total harmonic distortion as

IN order to improve power networks reliability, many
researches are focused on High Voltage Insulators. This
important element of the electrical transmission and
distribution system remains, yet, vulnerable to various
environmental conditions. Indeed, high voltage insulators are
susceptible to electrical flashover occurrence under natural
and industrial pollution [1-3]. To examine this phenomenon,
many authors studied the effect of pollution accumulation on
the insulator surface and found that the Leakage Current (LC)
is closely related to the contamination level [4-19].
To predict the contamination level and monitor high voltage
insulators, several methods, known as feature extraction
techniques, have been developed to study the characteristics of
LC. Ramirez-Vazquez et al [6] were interested to measure the
pulse number and the peak value of LC as well as the
cumulative charge value to assess pollution severity.
Similarly, Li et al [7] highlighted the mean value, the
maximum value and the standard deviation of the LC as
suitable quantities to study LC under pollution conditions.
Moreover, Jiang et al [8] proposed to examine the phase angle
between LC and applied voltage, the maximum pulse
Manuscript received on 8 September 2014, in final form 14 April 2015,
accepted 12 June 2015.
characteristic parameters to assess polluted insulators state. To
determine LC characteristics, the Fast Fourier Transform
(FFT) analysis, power spectrum analysis and wavelet analysis
are used respectively by Suda [9], Song and Choi [10], Douar
et al [11] and Pylarinos et al [12]. As main result found by
Suda, magnitudes of 3rd, 5th and 7th harmonics
(corresponding to 50 Hz, 150 Hz and 250 Hz respectively)
increase within the flashover process. Wavelets are useful for
decomposing LC into low frequency, medium frequency and
high frequency components. According to Song et al [10], the
high frequency components of LC are helpful to monitor the
contamination process on HV insulators. Also, Douar et al
[11] analyzed the flashover process and examined the
frequency characteristics of LC using Standard Deviation-
Multi Resolution Analysis (STD-MRA) representation.
Recently, Pylarinos et al [12] compared classification
performance of LC waveforms for temporal and frequency
features. Results showed that frequency components provide
better results. However, classical LC feature extraction,
computed from temporal and frequency domains, are very
limited in number. Moreover, interpretation of LC temporal
and frequency features does not offer an overview about the
insulator performance. These features have to be used as
inputs of artificial intelligence tools, such as Artificial Neural
Networks [13-18] or Fuzzy Logic [19-20], in monitoring of
pollution severity and diagnostic of the insulator performance.

DOI: 10.1109/TDEI.2015.004921

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IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 22, No. 6; December 2015
The Recurrent Plot (RP) is recently introduced in this area.
Initially, this technique was conceived to detect non-linearities
and eventually chaotic dynamics in experimental signals in
physics [21], in financial data time series [22] and ecosystem
time series [23]. Recently, it has been successfully applied to
study LC and monitor the flashover process [24-25] and also
to Dynamic Drop Test for Hydrophobicity Evaluation of
Silicone Rubber Insulator [26]. According to these studies, RP
provides a rapid overview about the insulator state during the
contamination process. However, RP delivers only a
qualitative overview, based on complex graphical
representation that requires tedious interpretation work.
Besides, an investigation of LC waveforms during the
contamination process shows that the LC is sinusoidal for low
pollution levels [24]; the higher the pollution level, the more
distorted the LC waveform. This latter contains large peaks
and differs from its sinusoidal shape during the discharge
propagation until flashover [25]. Such change in LC shape
should suggest the use of non-linear methods to investigate
and control LC dynamic variation during the contamination
process.
RQA is one of non-linear methods able to study the
dynamic of a given signal based on the chaos theory [27]. This
theory claims that small differences in initial conditions, of a
given system, yield widely to diverging outcomes, causing
thus the output prediction very difficult in general [28]. Used
numerously in the medical domain to analyze the dynamic of
physiological systems [29-39], RQA allows to discern
between healthy and unhealthy patients. RQA applied to the
heart beat signal revealed successful monitoring of heart
diseases [29-31]. Electromyography (EMG), which represents
the electrical activity of a muscle during contraction, was
investigated through RQA [32-33]. For instance, RQA has
been used by Ito et al [32] to detect muscle fatigue, and by
Ouyang et al [33] to identify hand grasp movement.
Furthermore, Electroencephalograms (ECG) have been
analyzed using RQA to monitor the most common and chronic
neurological epilepsy disorder [34-35]. Moreover, RQA
revealed successful early detection of seizure on ECG
deducted from rats [36]. Whereas, Yang et al [37] announced
the ability of RQA to prevent Myocardial infarction (heart
attack) when used to study Spatial Vectocardiogram (VCG)
signals.
Since RQA revealed successful disease detection and
unhealthy pattern recognition in the medical domain, we
propose it in this paper to study and monitor polluted
insulators performance based on LC investigation. To achieve
this purpose, LC waveforms acquisition is firstly carried out
on a plan insulator model uniformly spread by a saline
solution. Five conductivities of this solution have been chosen.
For each conductivity, Recurrent Plot (RP) is applied on LC
temporal waveform. RP diagrams show specific graphics and
morphologies for every pollution conductivity value. Hence,
RP monitors well enough the insulator performance during
contamination conditions. RP seems to be an excellent tool to
flashover monitoring. However, it requires rigorous
interpretation and provides only a qualitative overview of the
insulator state. To overcome this deficiency, we propose the
Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA). RQA is able not
only to quantify appearing structures on RP diagram, but also
to examine the variation and shifting of LC dynamic. Eight
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3377
RQA indicators are studied. Two dimensional scatter plots of
these eight indicators point out the high correlation between
their mean values and the pollution conductivity value.
Consequently, these mean values are used as inputs for three
well-known classification algorithms (K-Nearest Neighbors,
Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machines), while the output is
the pollution conductivity value class. As a novel LC feature
extraction technique, RQA seems to be a very effective
technique not only to monitor and diagnose the insulator
performance, but also to study LC dynamic under pollution.
2 EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENT
Experiments were carried out using the experiment
arrangement shown in Figure 1. It comprises a High Voltage
Test Transformer (300 kV/50 kVA, 50 Hz) supplied by a
Regulating Transformer (220/500 V, 50 kVA, 50 Hz). The
applied voltage is recorded through an AC capacitive voltage
divider (the ratio is 1000:1). The laboratory model is
constituted by a glass plate (500 mm x 500 mm x 5 mm).
Made up of aluminum paper, two rectangular electrodes (500
mm x 30 mm x 0.003 mm) have been used on both HV and
ground sides. The distance between the two electrodes
represents the leakage path of the 1512 L cap and pin insulator
(292 mm).
The contaminating pollution is composed of distilled water
and NaCl and is uniformly and continuously spread all over
the model surface. To ensure good reproducibility of the
pollution, the saline solution is pulverized 25 times on each
side of the insulator model using a sprayer placed above this
model and at a distance of 50 cm from it, as shown in Figure
2. To reproduce the different levels of the outdoor insulators
pollution (from light to extreme pollution conditions), the
adopted pollution conductivity values are: 0.01, 0.19, 0.71, 1.2
and 10.1 mS/cm. Before tests, the insulator surfaces were
washed with ethyl alcohol and rinsing with distilled water, in
order to remove any trace of dirt.
Tests are conducted under a fixed applied voltage equal to
12 kVrms. A Tektronix digital oscilloscope of bandwidth of
500 MHz and PC are used to record the leakage current and
applied voltage waveforms. Note that, leakage current signal
is measured trough a non-inductive resistance of 1 kΩ.
H.V.T.
500V/300kV, 50 Hz
C =400 µF
R.T.
220/0 to 500 V
T.S.
I.T. R = 1 kΩ
V.R.
Oscilloscope
500 MHz
P.C.
H.V.T.: High Voltage Transformer, R.T.: Regulating Transformer
I.T.: Isolating Transformer, V.R.: Voltage Regulator
P.C.: Personal computer, T.S.: Test Sample
Figure 1. Laboratory test arrangement.
3378 A. K. Chaou et al.: Recurrence Quantification Analysis as a Novel LC Feature Extraction Technique

3.2 RECURRENCE QUANTIFICATION ANALYSIS

(RQA)
The RQA is a method of non-linear data analysis for the
investigation of dynamical systems. This method, developed
Pulverization x25 by Webber and Zbilut [27], aims not only to quantify different
appearing structures in RP through indicators, but also to
50 cm study the shifting of a given signal’s dynamic. In this paper,
we focus on eight fundamental indicators [28]:
1. Recurrence Rate ( ) is the density of recurrence points in
a RP. corresponds to the probability that a specific
Figure 2. Pulverization method of the pollution on the insulator model. state will recur. is calculated by equation (2).
∑, , (2)
3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2. Determinism ( ) is the ratio of recurrence points on the
In this section, we expose a concise theoretical background diagonal structures to all recurrence points. ,
of methods used in this paper. First, RP computation concept computed according to equation (3), is related with the
is explained. Then, typical RP structures and their
determinism of the system and points out the predictability
corresponding interpretations are detailed. Further, RQA
of the system. Diagonal lines represent epochs with similar
method is presented. In this work, we study eight RQA
time evolution of states. A high indicates that RP
indicators. Calculation and physical interpretation of these
indicators is exposed. Finally, a brief theory about three of the contains more and longer diagonal line structures
most known classification methods (K-Nearest Neighbors, compared with the stochastic process.
∑
Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machines) is given. These (3)
supervised classification methods are used to determine the ∑

pollution severity value. where is the frequency distribution of the lengths of the
diagonal structures in the RP. is the threshold, which
3.1 RECURRENT PLOT (RP) excludes the diagonal lines formed by the tangential motion of
Recurrent plots are graphical tools which visualize the a phase space trajectory.
recurrence behavior of the phase space trajectory of dynamical
3. Average diagonal line length ( ) represents the average
systems. RP was first proposed in 1981 by Maizel and Lenk
time where two segments of the trajectory are close to each
[40] as a method of visualizing patterns in sequences of
genetic nucleotides. It has since been introduced to study other, and can be interpreted as the mean prediction time.
dynamical systems. RP is computed as shown in equation (1). is given by equation (4).
∑
, , 1, … , (1) ∑
(4)
,

where ||·|| is the norm (in this research, Euclidian norm is 4. Maximum of average diagonal line length ( ), which
adopted), (·) is the Heaviside function and is the studied represents the longest diagonal line found in the RP, is
time series. Equation (1) means that if the distance between calculated as in equation (5).
and is lessthan , then , = 1 and a dot is placed at , in max ; 1… (5)
the RP, else , = 0 and a blank is placed at , . where ∑ is the total number of diagonal lines.
To interpret RP diagrams, the use of Table 1 is more than 5. Laminarity ( ) is analogous to determinism except that
helpful. In fact, this table summarizes most common it is defined by the ratio of recurrence points forming
explanations about RP typologies and textures based on vertical structures to all recurrence points. indicates
studies carried out by Marwan et al [28]. the probability that a state will not change for the next time
step and is expressed according to equation (6).
Table 1. Interpretation of typical structures on RP diagrams.
∑
RP Structures Interpretation ∑
(6)
Homogeneous Stationary process where is the distribution of the lengths of the vertical
Diagonal lines Periodicity structures.
Isolated points Strong fluctuations
6. Trapping time ( ) represents the average length of
Periodic/quasi- vertical structures. Its computation requires the
Cyclicities in the process
periodic patterns consideration of a minimal length . estimates the
Non-stationary data; presence mean time that the system will abide at a specific state or
White bands
of abrupt transitions how long the state will be trapped. is calculated as in
Vertical and Laminar states; Some states do equation (7).
horizontal line not change or change slowly ∑
Long bowed line Similarity in state evolution ∑
(7)

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IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 22, No. 6; December 2015
7. Maximal length of the vertical lines ( ) is analogous to
the standard indicator ( is the absolute number of
vertical lines). can be regarded as the maximum time
that the system will remain at a specific state and is
computed by equation (8).
max (8)
8. Entropy ( ) refers to the Shannon entropy of the
probability / to find a diagonal line of
exactly length of l in the RP. , calculated by (9),
reflects the complexity of the RP concerning the diagonal
lines.
∑ ln (9)
3.3 CLASSIFICATION METHODS
Three of the most commonly used classification techniques
are employed in this paper: the k-nearest neighbors’ classifier
(Knn), the Naïve Bayesian classifier and the Support Vector
Machine (SVM). These three algorithms have already been
used in many domains [40-44].
4 RQA RESULTS
In this section, we expose results of RP and RQA for LC
waveforms investigation. For various pollution conductivities,
LC waveforms with their corresponding RP and RQA are
exposed. Results show that these indicators are highly
correlated to the pollution severity level. Consequently, to
extract features from LC waveforms, we propose to compute
the mean values of these eight indicators. Finally, two
dimensional scatter plots indicate the ability of RQA mean
values to distinguish between various levels of the pollution
severity.
4.1 RP DIAGRAMS
Using experimental arrangement described in chapter 2, the
recorded LC waveform on 10000 points is presented in Figure
3a, RP diagrams are computed using equation (1) and exposed
in Figure 3b. To interpret RP, we use Table 1. In case of 0.01
mS/cm conductivity value, few points compose the RP
indicating weak discharge activity on the insulator model. For
1.2 mS/cm, formation of white bands is noticed which
designates the apparition of local arcing discharges on the
insulating surface. Finally, for 10.1 mS/cm, RP contains very
dense points and larger white bands. The white segments point
out the intermission of intensive discharges and the dense
points indicate the intensive arcing discharges.
4.2 PHASE SPACE RECONSTRUCTION
Before computing RQA, a phase space reconstruction, of
LC time series, has to be performed. This is a primordial
processing step, because it converts the LC signal into a
recurrence plot in order to extract their features using RQA.
Therefore, by using the Takens’ embedding theorem [45], LC
time series are transformed into phase space trajectories as
described in (10).
, ,…, 1 . (10)
where 0,1,2, … , , is the length of the time series,
represents the embedding dimension, defines the delay
between samples and is phase space trajectory
describing the dynamical behavior of LC. According to [23],
and should be chosen equal to 5 and 20 respectively. That
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3379
is to say, by transforming the LC from a high dimensional
space to an -dimensional sub-space, RPs and RQA can be
established to investigate more efficiently LC properties.
4.3 RQA INDICATORS
Since RP describes time series visually (i.e. through
graphical and morphological structures) but not quantitatively,
the RQA quantifies a time series through the indicators based
on the RP. Therefore, by setting and equal to 2,
RQA indicators shown in Figure 3c are computed, using
equations (2) to (9). The higher the conductivity, the higher
the LC waveforms amplitudes and the more pulses around the
maxima.
All the indicators show higher variations, bigger peaks and
lower values when conductivity increases. , which
quantifies recurrent points, varies from 1 to 0.45 for a
conductivity equal to 0.01 mS/cm, decreases until 0.81 for 1.2
mS/cm and reaches almost 0 for 10.1 mS/cm. shows also
tight peaks for 0.01 mS/cm, while larger ones are observed
with the increase of the conductivity. High values of
indicate the presence of recurrent points on the RP, suggesting
the predictability of LC dynamic. However, small values of
indicate few recurrent points inferring white bands on the
RP. Thus, lower minimal values point out absence of
recurrences, signifying the shifting of LC dynamic from
predictable to non-stationary one.
Similarly, values decrease when the pollution severity
increases. , which points out the dynamic of a system, is
high for 0.01 mS/cm indicating that LC dynamic is
determinable and periodic. However, for a more severe
contamination, values diminish indicating that LC
waveforms move from a stochastic dynamic to non-periodical
one. This is due to the apparition of stronger discharges.
represents the average time that two segments of the
trajectory on the RP are close to each other. It can be
interpreted as the mean prediction time. It shows larger
variations with the increase of pollution conductivity. Its
diminution indicates that LC is becoming less predictable.
Likewise, signal is composed of peaks. These peaks are
larger for 10.1 mS/cm suggesting the unpredictability of LC
when the contamination is intensified.
is an important indicator. Although being analogous to
, brings valuable information. It shows lower
minimal values for the greater conductivity (10.1 mS/cm)
informing about the fewer occurrences of laminar states in the
LC. Thus, there are more single recurrent points and larger
white segments to describe the RP. Such structure predicts
more random and unstable behavior of LC.
High values of indicate the absence or slight change of
LC in time; that is to say that LC is trapped for some time.
This is a typical behavior of laminar states (intermittency).
Low values of suggest a fast incoming transition of the LC
to an unknown state predicting a forthcoming transition in LC
dynamic. Also, , which is analogous of , varies in
the same way.
Concerning (entropy), it is used for measuring the
complexity of a given signal. For 0.01 mS/cm, is close
to 3, but shows peaks due to LC deformations. For 10.1
mS/cm, presents lower minimal values and looks like a
sinusoidal signal. Such signal indicates the changing
complexity of the LC waveform. Therefore, LC signal
behavior is becoming non-periodical.
3380 A. K. Chaou et al.: Recurrence Quantification Analysis as a Novel LC Feature Extraction Technique

0.01 mS/cm
0.01mS/cm 1,2
1.2 mS/cm
mS/cm 10,1 mS/cm
10.1mS/cm
1 6 20
LC (mA)

0 0 0

-1 -6 -20
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
(a)
10000 10000 10000

9000 9000 9000

8000 8000 8000

7000 7000 7000

6000 6000 6000

5000 5000 5000

4000 4000 4000

3000 3000 3000

2000 2000 2000

1000 1000 1000

0 0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000

(b)

1 1 1
RR

0.9 0.8 0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
1 1 1
DET

0.9 0.9 0.7

13 13 15
10
L

5 5 0
20 20 20
Lmax

14 0 0
1 1 1
LAM

0.95 0.9 0.5

11 11 12
TT

8 5 0
20 20 20
Vmax

18

16 0 0
3 3 3
ENTR

2 1 0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
Sample Sample Sample
(c)
Figure 3. RQA for LC investigation under pollution, (a) LC waveforms for various conductivities, (b) RP representation, (c) RQA indicators waveforms.

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IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 22, No. 6; December 2015 3381

The higher the conductivity value, the lower the RQA
indicators minimal values. In fact, low values of these
indicators correspond to blank spaces on the RP and suggest a
non-periodical LC signal. Such RQA values result from
contamination which causes distortions and pulses on the LC
waveforms, especially near peak regions. Therefore, RQA
values are composed of small magnitudes and tight peaks for
pollution conductivities less than 1.2 mS/cm. However, for
10.1 mS/cm, RQA values contain big and large magnitude
peaks. Such variation quantifies and describes LC dynamic
under pollution. In other words, the deterioration of the
insulator performance is highlighted by the diminution of
RQA indicators minimal values. These indicators announce
the shifting of LC dynamic from periodical dynamic to non-
stationary one indicating the possible occurrence of the
flashover.
4.4 RQA FEATURE EXTRACTION
From Figure 3, RQA indicators are proven to be highly
correlated to the pollution severity, thus to extract a feature
vector from RQA indicators, we opt for computing their mean
values. Indeed, to study the correlation between RQA
indicators and the pollution level, we plot RQA indicators
mean values two by two, for various pollution levels, on a two
1 20
0.01 mS/cm
0.9 0.19 mS/cm
0.71 mS/cm
1.2 mS/cm
0.8
10.1 mS/cm
0.7
Lmax
DET
dimensional space. To plot the eight indicators, 28
combinations are possible. Among them, we have randomly
chosen the characteristics shown in Figure 4. It can be seen
from these scatter plots that the mean values of the eight
indicators decrease with the increase of the pollution
conductivity. Moreover, in every plot, we observe that RQA
mean values are gathered in five groups corresponding to the
five pollution conductivity values. Such plots suggest that
RQA means values are directly related to the pollution level.
These indicators plots proof the ability of RQA to discern
between the pollution severity levels. Indeed, for a given
pollution conductivity, values of RQA indicators are situated
in a specified interval. Consequently, RQA is chosen as a
feature extraction technique to determine and classify the
pollution severity based on LC examination. Hence, RQA
indicators mean values are chosen as inputs for classification
methods, while the output is the pollution conductivity value.
Flowchart of the algorithm using RQA for pollution
conductivity classification is exposed in Figure 5.
5 CLASSIFICATION RESULTS
Three classification techniques used in this paper consist in
the k-nearest neighbors’ classifier (Knn), the Naïve Bayesian
0.01 mS/cm
0.19 mS/cm
18 0.71 mS/cm
1.2 mS/cm
10.1 mS/cm
16

0.6 14

0.5
12

0.4

10
0.3

0.2 8
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
RR L
(a) DET vs. RR (b) Lmax vs. L
1 17
0.01 mS/cm 0.01 mS/cm
0.19 mS/cm 16.5 0.19 mS/cm
0.9 0.71 mS/cm 0.71 mS/cm
1.2 mS/cm 16
1.2 mS/cm
10.1 mS/cm 10.1 mS/cm
15.5
0.8

15
ENTR
TT

0.7 14.5

14
0.6
13.5

13
0.5
12.5

0.4 12
0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 8.5 9 9.5 10 10.5 11 11.5 12
LAM Vmax
(c) TT vs. LAM (d) ENTR vs. Vmax
Figure 4. RQA indicators mean values for various pollution severity levels.

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3382 A. K. Chaou et al.: Recurrence Quantification Analysis as a Novel LC Feature Extraction Technique

Start
LC acquisition
Phase space reconstruction
RQA computation
RQA feature extraction
Naïve
Knn SVM
Bayes
Pollution conductivity classification
End
Figure 5. Flowchart of the proposed algorithm based on RQA feature
extraction for LC pollution severity classification.
classifier and the Support Vector Machines (SVM). The k-
nearest neighbors (Knn) classifier [42] is simple and easy to
implement. It requires no training and assigns an object to the
most common class among its k-nearest neighbors. Several
distances can be used to determine the nearest neighbors. The
Euclidian distance was chosen in this paper, with k equal to 1.
The Naïve Bayes classifier [43] is a simple probabilistic
classifier based on Bayes theory. It implies the assumption
that variables are statistically independent. It is known to be
rather effective. The Support Vector Machines (SVM) [44] is
considered as one of the most accurate machine learning
classifiers because of its ability to solve problems of linear and
non-linear classification by finding the maximum margin
hyper plane that separates the classes. Several kernel functions
can be used, including linear, polynomial, RBF, and sigmoid.
However, SVM suffers from multi-class categorization
problem and has to be adapted in the case of multi-class
recognition problem (one vs. one or one vs. all strategies). In
this work, “one vs. all” strategy and linear kernel function
were used.
To estimate the pollution severity through LC classification,
five labels are assigned to five pollution conductivities, from
the lightest to the heaviest ones (class 1 corresponds to 0.01
mS/cm, while class 5 corresponds to 10.1 mS/cm), as
described in Table 2. Previously plotted in Figure 4, the LC
database is composed of 100 LC waveforms (20 per
conductivity). 90 % of this database is used for training and
the rest for testing.
As shown in Table II, the obtained classification results are
successful for the 10 samples in the case of SVM and Knn
algorithms. However, Naïve Bayes classifier offers bad results
with 4 misclassifications out of 10. These results are somehow
predictable. Having the ability to deal with linear and non-
linear classification problems, SVM is known to be a high
performance classifier [43]. Knn seems also to be a very good
choice in this work. However, Naïve Bayes classifier,
although being simple and fast, shows low performance
especially when dealing with a limited database.
The classification accuracy comparison of the three cited
methods highlights the importance of choosing the proper
classification technique. Indeed, to build an efficient
classification algorithm, both choices of the feature extraction
technique and the classification method are highly decisive.
6 CONCLUSION
In order to monitor the insulator performance and build a
proficient pollution severity diagnostic tool, an examination of
LC signals though RQA was established. Showing an
undoubted efficiency for signal dynamic analysis, eight RQA
indicators of LC are computed and examined for various
pollution levels. These indicators characterized very well LC
signal behavior. Indeed, the higher the pollution conductivity
value, the lower RQA indicators minimal values. Two
dimensional scatter plots confirm that the eight indicators
mean values are highly linked to the pollution severity level.
Indeed, five groups are clearly noticeable corresponding to the
five pollution levels. Thus, these eight indicators mean values
are chosen as input for three classification algorithms. Results

Table 2. Classification results.

Pollution Obtained class

Assigned
Sample conductivity Naïve
(mS/cm)
class Knn SVM
Bayes
1 0.877 0.899 9.410 17.55 1.740 0.743 9.407 16.428 10.1 5 5 5 5
2 0.749 0.942 3.799 11.28 0.631 0.665 9.281 17.128 10.1 5 5 5 5
3 0.89 0.989 9.974 18.40 2.221 0.897 10.73 18.634 1.2 4 4 4 4
4 0.875 0.995 9.937 17.38 3.933 0.898 9.676 16.412 1.2 4 4 3* 4
5 0.954 0.992 4.724 12.48 1.766 0.900 10.046 17.033 0.710 3 3 3 3
6 0.718 0.853 2.344 3.852 0.636 0.540 10.546 14.389 0.710 3 3 4* 3
7 0.954 0.992 5.219 12.98 2.061 0.900 10.341 17.228 0.190 2 2 2 2
8 0.718 0.853 2.839 4.347 0.931 0.541 11.249 14.578 0.190 2 2 3* 2
9 0.728 0.863 3.544 4.852 1.436 0.552 11.146 14.783 0.01 1 1 1 1
10 0.820 0.914 11.59 19.79 3.580 0.945 10.757 17.368 0.01 1 1 2* 1

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IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 22, No. 6; December 2015
of classification announce SVM and Knn classifiers as the
suitable algorithms to choose instead of the Naïve Bayes
classifier and also RQA as an excellent LC feature extraction
technique. Moreover, RQA allows to study LC dynamic
during the contamination process. In fact, LC dynamics is
noticed to be non-linear. For low pollution levels, LC is
sinusoidal. However, for the highest conductivity, LC
waveform becomes distorted and contains peaks suggesting,
thus, a non-stationary dynamic. This paper presents an original
technique to monitor and study LC signal under contamination
process. RQA is, not only, a novel method to study and
investigate LC dynamics during the contamination process,
but also an efficient LC feature extraction technique to
determine the pollution severity level and monitor the
insulator performance.
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Ahmed Khaled Chaou received the degree of Engineer
and Masters degree in High Voltage Engineering from
Ecole Nationale Polytechnique (ENP) of Algiers in 2012.
He is currently a Ph.D. degree student at the Electrical
Engineering Department in the same School. His research
interests are in artificial intelligence, signal processing and
pattern recognition for polluted insulators diagnosis.
Abdelouahab Mekhaldi was born in Algiers, Algeria in
1958. He received the degree of Engineer in 1984 in
electrical engineering, a Masters degree in 1990 and a
PhD in high voltage engineering in 1999 from Ecole
Nationale Polytechnique (ENP) of Algiers. He is currently
a Professor at ENP of Algiers, His main research areas are
in discharge phenomena, outdoor insulators pollution,
polymeric cables insulation, lightning, artificial intelligence application in
high voltage insulation diagnosis and electric field calculation.
Madjid Teguar has obtained a first degree in electrical
engineering in 1990, a Masters degree in 1993 and a
Ph.D. degree in high voltage engineering in 2003 from
Ecole Nationale Polytechnique (ENP) of Algiers. He is
now a Professor in electrical engineering at ENP. His
research interests are in insulation systems, insulation
coordination, earthing of electrical energy systems and
polymeric cables insulation