High voltage insulator monitoring using infrared camera and FPGA

Abstract

This research investigates the use of FPGAs to create a fully autonomous system to detect hotspots on high voltage insulators by processing infrared videos. Initial algorithm development was conducted with MATLAB. The algorithm was automated by the addition of automatic temperature tracking and arc detection giving a sixtyfold speed increase (85 Hz). Explored two FPGA implementations of the algorithm: Verilog only; an embedded processor running compiled C++ code. Applications include post processing and live stream processing where alerts can be fed to maintenance teams of transmission system operators.