A new, bio-inspired printed monopole antenna (PMA) model is applied to monitor partial discharge (PD) activity in high voltage insulating systems. An optimized sensor was obtained by designing a PMA in accordance with the characteristics of the electromagnetic signal produced by PD. An ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna was obtained by applying the truncated ground plane technique. The patch geometry was bio-inspired by that of the Inga Marginata leaf, resulting in a significant reduction in size. To verify the operating frequency and gain of the PMA, measurements were carried out in an anechoic chamber. The results show that the antenna operating bandwidth covers most of the frequency range of PD occurrence. Moreover, the antenna presented a good sensitivity (mean gain of 3.63 dBi). The antenna performance was evaluated through comparative results with the standard IEC 60270 method. For this purpose, simultaneous tests were carried out in a PD generator arrangement, composed by an oil cell with point-to-plane electrode configurations. The developed PMA can be classified as an optimized sensor for PD detection and suitable for substation application, since it is able to measure PD radiated signals with half the voltage levels obtained from the IEC method and is immune to corona discharges.

A microstrip leaf-shaped printed monopole antenna bioinspired on the Inga marginata leaves is presented in this paper for UWB applications. A parametric study of the proposed antenna bioinspired geometry was conducted in order to verify their resonant properties. The antenna was designed with a rectangular slitted ground plane for impedance matching and fabricated on inexpensive glass fiber substrate and fed by a 50 Ω microstrip line. Numerical and experimental results were obtained. The results show an impedance bandwidth superior to 10.26 GHz, greater than the bandwidth considered UWB (7.5 GHz). Antenna dimensions were optimized with the computer program Ansys Designer® used to simulate the electromagnetic behavior of the antennas by the method of moments.

In this paper, the practical application of a bio-inspired antenna for partial discharge (PD) detection in high voltage equipment was evaluated in order to validate the efficiency of using this technology for PD monitoring purposes. For this, PD measurements using the bio-inspired antenna were performed on operational 69 kV potential transformers (PT) in a real substation. After the field experiment, laboratory measurements using the IEC 60270 standard method and a bio-inspired antenna were performed, simultaneously, over the evaluated PT. The results obtained at the substation indicated suspicious frequencies of partial discharge activity in two out of three evaluated potential transformers, mainly for the frequencies of 461 MHz, 1366 MHz, 1550 MHz and 1960 MHz. During the laboratory tests, the presence of partial discharge activity over the suspicious potential transformers was confirmed with the detection of PD apparent charge levels above 20 pC. Finally, the frequency spectrum obtained from the PD signals detected by the bio-inspired antenna in the laboratory presented similar frequency values to those obtained during the practical application at the substation, making it a promising indicator for future defect classification studies using artificial intelligence.