A novel fault diagnosis method for PV arrays using convolutional extension neural network with symmetrized dot pattern analysis

PV fault diagnosis remains difficult due to the non‐linear characteristic of PV output, which makes PV output to be likely disturbed by the ambient environment. This study proposes a novel convolutional extension neural network (CENN) algorithm, which is a jointed architecture based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and extension neural network (ENN), takes advantage of CNN and ENN. The CENN is combined with the symmetrized dot pattern (SDP) analysis method to diagnose the common eight PV array faults. The SDP is used to transform the measured PV signals into the point coordinate feature image; then, the CENN is trained to identify the different PV faults. Experimental results show an obvious improvement in short detection times and high accuracy compared with traditional CNN and the histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) extraction method with support vector machine (SVM), K‐nearest neighbours (KNN), and back propagation neural network (BPNN) classifiers, with 95.3%, 94%, 93.5%, and 93.3% accuracy, respectively. Using the proposed CENN, the accuracy can be raised to 97.3%. Additionally, the signals measured by various sensors are collected using programmable logic controller (PLC). The human–machine interface (HMI) and the proposed algorithm are developed using LabVIEW for graphical design. Finally, the information is transmitted to a tablet PC for performing real‐time remote monitoring.