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An accurate and cost-effective islanding detection is in a great need for distributed generation (DG) integration. An onsite contactless islanding detection scheme is proposed in this article, based on a small number of tiny and portable electric field (EF) sensors. In contrast to the existing mainstream detection techniques, which are heavily depended on the instrument transformer measurement in substations, the proposed contactless scheme is able to be deployed on the ground below the overhead feeders, enabled by a compact EF sensor and the associated accurate frequency measurement algorithm. The effectiveness, robustness, efficiency, and security advantages of the proposed method are investigated and verified by the simulations using various feeder configurations. It is further supported by the laboratory experiments based on a scale-down overhead feeder testbed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to measure ac currents in a bundle of inaccessible, enclosed conductors has been a challenging problem but with many potential applications. This paper presents a method to solve the problem using an array of magnetic field sensors. The proposed method consists of two novel ideas. The first idea is to use an off-site calibration method to establish sensor parameters including sensing position and angle, which provides more accurate sensor parameter estimation than their nominal values. The second idea is to “measure” (i.e., calculate) conductor currents and positions based on the sensed magnetic fields and preestablished sensor parameters. This process is simplified since the sensor information is obtained by the first idea. Both calibration and measurement tasks are formulated as nonlinear least square problems and solved efficiently. The proposed method is demonstrated for the cases involving ideal three-conductor system and practical residential service cable enclosed in a plastic conduit. The method has the potential for contactless current measurement of Romex cables and overhead distribution lines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]