IoT Based Underground Cable Fault Detector

Underground cables are prone to a wide variety of faults due to underground conditions, wear and tear, rodents etc. Diagnosing fault source is difficult and entire cable should be taken out from the ground to check and fix faults. The project work is intended to detect the location of fault in underground cable lines from the base station in km using a PIC16F877A controller. To locate a fault in the cable, the cable must be tested for faults. This prototype uses the simple concept of Ohms law. The current would vary depending upon the length of fault of the cable. In the urban areas, the electrical cables run in underground instead of overhead lines. Whenever the fault occurs in underground cable it is difficult to detect the exact location of the fault for process of repairing that particular cable. The proposed system finds the exact location of the fault. The prototype is modelled with a set of resistors representing cable length in km and fault creation is made by a set of switches at every known distance to cross check the accuracy of the same. In case of fault, the voltage across series resistors changes accordingly, which is then fed to an ADC to develop precise digital data to a programmed PIC IC that further displays fault location in distance. The fault occurring distance, phase, and time is displayed on a LCD display interfaced with the microcontroller. IoT is used to display the information over Internet using the Wi-Fi module ESP8266.A webpage is created using HTML coding and the information about occurrence of fault is displayed in a webpage. Here the current sensing of circuits made with a combination of resistors is interfaced to micro controller with the help of internally inbuilt ADC for providing the digital data to microcontroller. The fault sensing circuit is made with the combination of set of series resistors &the set of switches alongside each resistor. The relays are controlled by the relay driver. A LCD display is connected to the microcontroller to display the information of phase/phases and location of fault in kilometers