A modified abductive inference model for fault section estimation in power systems using the tabu search approach

A new approach to fault section estimation in power systems is presented based upon a modified abductive inference model and the tabu search method. The developed fault section estimation model can simultaneously take into account the operating reliabilities of protective relays and circuit breakers and the degree of correctness of received and nonreceived alarm data in a formal and systematic manner. In the modified abductive inference model, a criterion for describing the relative plausibility of different diagnosis hypotheses is available. Based on this criterion, the fault section estimation problem is then formulated as a 0-1 integer programming problem, and a tabu search (TS) approach is presented for solving the problem. A sample power system is served for demonstrating the correctness of the developed abductive inference based fault section estimation model and the computational efficiency of the TS-based method.