Fault detection in DC distributed power systems based on impedance characteristics of modules

This paper proposes a novel fault detection approach for DC distributed power systems. In normal conditions, impedance of well-designed power electronics modules (converters/inverters) in a distributed power system ought to meet their design specifications. Therefore, by checking the impedance of individual modules against their specifications via simple measurements, one is able to detect DC bus stability margin online as well as to localize the fault to the trouble-making module. Simulation and experiment results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.