Novel hybrid signal processing approach based on empirical mode decomposition and multiscale mathematical morphology for islanding detection in distributed generation system

A novel islanding detection technique by hybridising empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and multi-scale mathematical morphology (MMM) is proposed to detect the islanding condition in a distributed generation system to ensure personnel and equipment safety. The proposed method first uses EMD to efficiently separate the collected raw signal into the number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) with different frequency scales and the signal is reconstructed considering important IMFs which carry transient features for further analysis using their correlation coefficients. MMM is used for determining a ratio index named as MMMRI, the threshold value of the proposed MMMRI decides islanding and other power quality (PQ) disturbances. The proposed hybrid method name coined as EMD-MMMRI. The main motivation behind hybridising two signal processing techniques is to reduce detection time and improve accuracy. The efficacy of the method is demonstrated for different PQ disturbances and islanding events simulated on a grid-connected, heavily wind energy penetrated distributed generation system using MATLAB/Simulink environment. The test bench validation of the proposed technique is obtained through TMS 320C6713 Starter Kit (DSK) in digital signal processor platform. The efficacy of proposed work is demonstrated with large number of simulation studies.