UNIVERSITY VISVESVARAYA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

KR CIRCLE, BENGALURU
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

THREE PHASE UNDERGROUND

CABLE FAULT DETECTION USING
IoT

TEAM MEMBERS: TEAM GUIDE:

1. Aparna Kanwar – 16GAEE7006 1. Prof. M.V. Kashinath
2. Biswajeet Malla – 16GAEE7011
3. Shabana KC – 16GAEE7059
4. Sushmita – 14GAEE7032
 UNDERGROUND CABLES

• Why underground cables ?

 Urban areas
 Adverse weather conditions – No effect

• Types of faults
 Open Circuit fault
 Short Circuit fault
 Earth fault
 UNDERGROUND CABLES

• Probable reasons for occurrence of faults ?

 Construction Work
 Moisture entering the insulation
 Mechanical Injury – transportation, laying down, stresses
encountered during working life etc.

• Difficulties with underground cables

 Unknown exact location of the fault.
 OBJECTIVE

Find exact location of the fault.

Reduction in fault detection time and efforts.

Improvement in reliability.

Monitor the fault from any remote location.

 PROPOSED SYSTEM

Basic concept used – Ohm’s Law

(Fault occurs  variation in voltage drop depending on
length of faulty cable )

Project consists of 4 parts:

1. DC Power Supply
2. Cable
3. Controlling Part
4. Display and Communication Part
 OVERVIEW
1. DC Power Supply

(a) Transformer Only

 OVERVIEW
(b) Transformer + Rectifier

(c) Transformer + Rectifier + Smoothing

 OVERVIEW
(d) Transformer + Rectifier + Smoothing + Regulator

2. Cable
- Sensing part : Set of Resistors
- Fault Creator : Switches
 OVERVIEW
3. Controlling Part
- Analog to Digital Converter(ADC)
- Receives input from sensing circuit
- Convert voltage to digital signal in microcontroller

4. Display & Communication Part

- LCD interfaced with Arduino
- IoT ESP8266 WIFI module
 COMPONENTS USED

HARDWARE SOFTWARE
 Microcontroller
 LCD Display(16*2)  Arduino IDE
 Relay switch  Embedded C language for programming
 Transformer(step down)
 Rectifier bridge
 Filter
 Connecting wires
 PCB board
 LED
 Resistance
 WIFI IOT module or GSM module (any one)
 Switches
 MICROCONTROLLER
 A microcontroller is a small computer
on a single metal oxide semiconductor
(MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chip.
 ATmega328 is an 8-bit and 28 Pins
 EEPROM memory - 1KB
 SRAM memory i- 2KB.
 It has 8 Pin for ADC operations, which
all combines to form Porta (PA0 –
PA7).
 It also has 3 built-in Timers, two of
them are 8 Bit timers while the third
one is 16-Bit Timer.
 ATmega328 Pins Description
 VCC - digital voltage supply.
 AVCC - supply voltage pin for analog to
digital converter.
 GND - Ground (0V)
 Port A ( PA0 to PA7)- analog input to analog
to digital converters
 Port B (PB0 to PB7)- Have an internal pull-
up resistor.
 Port C (PC0 to PC7)-The output buffers
of port C has symmetrical drive
characteristics with source capability as well
high sink.
 Port D (PD0 to PD7)-Also have an internal
pull-up resistor.
 LCD DISPLAY

Pin No Pin Name Pin Description

 communication between the human Pin 1 GND This pin is a ground pin and the LCD is connected to the Ground
world and the machine world. Pin 2 VCC The VCC pin is used to supply the power to the LCD

 The liquid crystal display uses the This pin is used for adjusting the contrast of the LCD by connecting the variable

property of light monitoring of Pin 3 VEE resistor in between the VCC & Ground.

liquid crystal and they do not emit The RS is known as register select and it selects the Command/Data register.

the light directly. Pin 4 RS

To select the command register the RS should be equal to zero. To select the
Data register the RS should be equal to one.

 With low information, content the This pin is used to select the operations of Read/Write. To perform the write

LCD’ s is obtained in the fixed
Pin 5
image or the arbitrary image which
are displayed or hidden like Pin 6
operations the R/W should be equal to zero. To perform the read operations
R/W the R/W should be equal to one.
This is a enable signal pin if the positive pulses are passing through a pin, then
EN the pin function as a read/write pin.

present words, digits, or 7 segment Pin 7 DB0 to DB7 The pin 7 contains total 8 pins which are used as a Data pin of LCD.

display. This pin is connected to VCC and it is used for the pin 16 to set up the glow of
Pin 15 LED + backlight of LCD.

This pin is connected to Ground and it is used for the pin 15 to set up the glow
Pin 16 LED – of backlight of the LCD.
 RELAY SWITCH
 NC: Normally closed 120-240V terminal
 NO: Normally open 120-240V terminal
 C: Common terminal
 Ground: Connects to the ground pin on
the Arduino
 5V Vcc: Connects the Arduino’s 5V pin
 Signal: Carries the trigger signal from
the Arduino that activates the relay
 OTHER COMPONENTS
 Resistance- Resist the flow of current
V= I * R
 Switch- Temporary change in the state of
an electrical circuit
 Transformer(step down) - steps down high
voltage AC mains to low voltage AC.
 Rectifier bridge - converts AC to DC.
 Smoothing - smooths the DC from varying
greatly to a small ripple.
 Regulator - eliminates ripple by setting DC
output to a fixed voltage.
 PCB- To hold all our components together in
one place as a single unit.
 IOT MODULE
 The ESP8266 can connect
microcontroller to the
internet wirelessly.  
 Extreme durability and
longevity.
 ARDUINO

 Arduino is an open-source electronics 1-USB-B port to computer

platform based on hardware and 2- 7 to 12VDC input male center positive
software. Arduino boards are able to read 3-GND
inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a 4-5V output
button, or a Twitter message - and turn it 5-3.3V output
into an output - activating a motor, turning 6-Analog
on an LED, publishing something online. 7/8-Digital/PMW
9-AREF
 You can tell your board what to do by
10-RESET
sending a set of instructions to the
11-ON
microcontroller on the board.
12-TX and RX indicator LEDs 
 To do so you use the Arduino programming 13-Integrated Circuit 
language (based on Wiring) , and the 14-Voltage regulator
Arduino Software (IDE), based on Processing.
Arduino IDE

 Arduino IDE is an open source software that is mainly used for writing and
compiling the code into the Arduino Module.
 Each of them contains a microcontroller on the board that is
actually programmed and accepts the information in the form of code.
 The IDE environment mainly contains two basic parts: Editor and Compiler
where former is used for writing the required code and later is used for
compiling and uploading the code into the given Arduino Module.
BLOCK DIAGRAM
THE MODEL
WORKING METHODOLOGY

• Programs uploaded in Arduino UNO

to detect faults from the cables.

• When a fault occurs in the cables, we

can find out faults through Arduino
controller.

• LCD displays the faults in Kilometre

• Microcontroller will update this all

information to IOT cloud using with
help of IOT WIFI module esp8266.
FLOWCHART
 LCD INTERFACING WITH THE ARDUINO

• the RS pin of the LCD is connected

to the pin 12 of the Arduino.

• The pin 11 of the Arduino is

connected to the enable signal pin
of LCD module.

• The digital input lines (DB4-DB7)

are interfaced with the Arduino pins
from 5-2.
 INTERFACING WIFI MODULE

• Connect the Arduino’s 3v3 (3.3V) output to the

red line on a breadboard. The ESP8266 works
with 3.3V and not 5V.

• Connect GND (ground) to the blue line.

• Connect the RES or RESET pin to the blue line.

When you ground the reset pin, the Arduino works
as a dumb USB to serial connector, which is what
we want to talk to the ESP8266.

• Connect the RXD pin of the Arduino to

the RX pin of the ESP8266 (yellow colour in the
picture).
Three Phase Cable fault detection using IOT

• Advantages & Disadvantages

• Present technology used
• Future Scope
Advantages
Less maintenance
It has higher efficiency
This method is applicable to all types of cable
It will provide location of fault
LCD interfaced for Locally display information
Easy to use
No Men Power required
Continues Monitoring 24X7
Wireless WIFI IOT technology-based system
Disadvantages

Without internet data we can not see the status from

remote location.
System always need power for test, either we can use
battery or other source in case of power cut.
Present technology used
When electrical energy is generated in the generations
stations, it is distributed to the different loads, i.e. cities,
towns and villages for consumption.
The process involves stepping up the voltage to minimize
the loss of energy in the form of heat. The stepped up
voltage is distributed to grid stations where it is stepped
down for distribution to the local transformers where it is
finally stepped down and distributed to the consumers.
The basic method of locating a cable fault depends on
physically cutting and splicing the cable. Dividing the
cable into successively smaller sections will enable you
to narrow down the search for a fault.
For example, on a 500-ft length, you would cut the
cable into two 250-ft sections and measure both ways
with an ohmmeter or high-voltage insulation resistance
(IR) tester. The defective section shows a lower IR
than the good section. You would repeat this procedure
until reaching a short enough section of cable to allow
repair of the fault. This laborious procedure normally
involves repeated cable excavation.
Future Scope
The project detects only the location of the circuit fault
in cable line, but it can also be extended to detect other
required parameter of cable.
In future we can add LDR also in this project for
checking optical fiber cable fault detection also.
There are many other features for fault we can include
in that in future. We can monitor the load also on three
phases and can cut supply of overload related issue is
detected, On the user end we can add more display
option on IOT cloud.
 CONCLUSION

This Project proposed a fault location scheme for transmission systems

consisting of cable. In this method, particular distance in the cable can be
located using simple concepts of OHM’s law that enables to rectify fault
efficiently feeder end in meters by using Arduino. For this we use simple
concept of OHM’s law so fault can be easily detected and repaired. By using
Arduino controller, we can find out exact fault location. Once faults occur in
the cable, the display unit displays the exact fault location that displays which
phase is affected in the cable and how long it’s affected. This information we
will able to see from anywhere of world location using IOT cloud service.
Complete hardware working successfully working and tested successfully.