阅读说明：本技术 使用低侧电极和接地分隔的电力电缆监测装置 (Power cable monitoring device using low side electrode and ground separation ) 是由 道格拉斯·B·贡德尔 埃亚尔·多隆 利奥尔·恩邦 乌迪·布利希 于 2019-09-05 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明描述了用于监测电网的电气设备并预测此类电气设备的可能故障事件的技术、系统和制品。在一个示例中,感测装置被配置为耦接到电力电缆。感测装置包括多个同心层和监测装置。多个同心层包括第一层、第二层和第三层。第一层被配置为同心地围绕电缆的中心导体并且包含绝缘材料。第二层包含导电材料。第三层包含电阻材料,该电阻材料被配置为抵抗第二层与第三层外部的接地导体之间的电流动。监测装置包括传感器和通信单元,该通信单元被配置为输出指示传感器数据的数据。(Techniques, systems, and articles of manufacture are described for monitoring electrical equipment of an electrical grid and predicting possible fault events for such electrical equipment. In one example, the sensing device is configured to be coupled to a power cable. The sensing device includes a plurality of concentric layers and a monitoring device. The plurality of concentric layers includes a first layer, a second layer, and a third layer. The first layer is configured to concentrically surround a center conductor of the cable and comprises an insulating material. The second layer includes a conductive material. The third layer includes a resistive material configured to resist flow of electricity between the second layer and a ground conductor external to the third layer. The monitoring device includes a sensor and a communication unit configured to output data indicative of the sensor data.)

1. A sensing device configured to be coupled to a power cable, the sensing device comprising:

a plurality of concentric layers, the plurality of concentric layers comprising:

a first layer configured to concentrically surround a center conductor of the cable and comprising an insulating material;

a second layer comprising a conductive material; and

a third layer comprising a resistive material configured to resist flow of electricity between the second layer and a ground conductor external to the third layer,

wherein the second layer is disposed between the first layer and the third layer;

a monitoring device, the monitoring device comprising:

a sensor electrically coupled to the second layer and configured to generate sensor data indicative of one or more conditions of the apparatus;

a communication unit configured to output data indicative of the sensor data.

2. The sensing device of claim 1, wherein the communication unit is electrically coupled to the second layer and configured to output data indicative of a health state of the device via power line communication.

3. The sensing device of any one of claims 1 to 2, wherein the sensor comprises at least one of:

a temperature sensor is arranged at the bottom of the shell,

a current sensor for measuring the current of the electric motor,

a voltage sensor, or

A partial discharge sensor.

4. The sensing device of any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the monitoring device further comprises power harvesting circuitry electrically coupled to the second layer and configured to harvest power from the cable.

5. The sensing device of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the data indicative of the sensor data comprises data indicative of a health state of the device.

6. The sensing device of any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the monitoring device further comprises:

at least one processor; and

a memory comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to determine a health state of the apparatus based at least in part on the sensor data.

7. The sensing device as set forth in claim 6,

wherein execution of the instructions causes the at least one processor to determine the health status of the cable accessory by causing the at least one processor to predict whether the cable accessory will fail within a predetermined amount of time based at least in part on the sensor data, and

wherein the data indicative of the sensor data comprises data indicative of whether the cable accessory will fail within the predetermined amount of time.

8. The sensing device of any one of claims 6 to 7, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the at least one processor to determine the health status of the cable accessory by at least causing the at least one processor to:

applying a model to at least the sensor data generated by the one or more sensors of the cable accessory to determine an operational health state of the cable accessory.

9. The sensing device of claim 8, wherein execution of the instructions causes the at least one processor to apply the model by at least causing the processor to apply the model to the sensor data and data indicative of one or more characteristics of the device, wherein the one or more characteristics of the cable accessory include one or more of:

the position of the device is such that,

the manufacturer of the device is provided with a standard,

an installer of said device, or

The type of the device.

10. The sensing device of any one of claims 1 to 8, further comprising a joint body forming the plurality of concentric layers, and wherein the first layer is configured to concentrically surround an electrical connector joining a first electrical cable and a second electrical cable to form the center conductor of the electrical cable.

11. The sensing device of any one of claims 1 to 10, further comprising a fourth layer comprising an electrically conductive material and configured to concentrically surround the third layer, wherein the monitoring device is electrically coupled to the second layer and the fourth layer.

12. A system, comprising:

a cable accessory configured to be coupled to a cable, the cable accessory including a connector body and a monitoring device,

wherein the joint body comprises a plurality of concentric layers comprising:

a first layer configured to concentrically surround a center conductor of the cable and comprising an insulating material;

a second layer comprising a conductive material; and

a third layer comprising a resistive material configured to resist flow of electricity between the second layer and a ground conductor external to the third layer,

wherein the second layer is disposed between the first layer and the third layer; and is

Wherein the monitoring device comprises a sensor electrically coupled to the second layer and configured to generate sensor data indicative of one or more conditions of the cable accessory;

at least one processor; and

a memory comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:

receiving the sensor data;

determining a health state of the cable accessory based at least in part on the sensor data; and

in response to determining the health status of the cable accessory, performing an operation.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the cable accessory includes a communication unit electrically coupled to the second layer of the splice body and configured to output data via power line communication.

14. The system of any of claims 12-13, wherein the cable accessory includes power harvesting circuitry electrically coupled to the second layer and configured to harvest power from the cable.

15. The system of any one of claims 12 to 14, further comprising an electrical connector configured to join a first cable and a second cable forming the cable, wherein the joint body is configured to concentrically surround the electrical connector.

16. The system of any one of claims 12 to 15, further comprising a conductor configured to concentrically enclose the connector body.

17. The system of any one of claims 12 to 16,

wherein execution of the instructions causes the at least one processor to determine the health status of the electrical cable accessory by at least causing the at least one processor to predict whether the electrical cable accessory will fail within a predetermined amount of time, and

wherein the data indicative of the health status of the device comprises data indicative of whether the cable accessory will fail within the predetermined amount of time.

18. The system of any of claims 12 to 16, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the at least one processor to determine the health status of the cable accessory by at least causing the at least one processor to:

applying a model to at least the sensor data generated by the one or more sensors of the cable accessory to determine an operational health state of the cable accessory.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein execution of the instructions causes the at least one processor to apply the model by at least causing the processor to apply the model to the sensor data and data indicative of one or more characteristics of the device, wherein the one or more characteristics of the cable accessory include one or more of:

the position of the device is such that,

the manufacturer of the device is provided with a standard,

an installer of said device, or

The type of the device.

20. The system of any one of claims 12 to 19, wherein the monitoring device comprises the memory and the at least one processor.

21. The system of any of claims 12-19, wherein the at least one processor comprises a first processor and a second processor, wherein the monitoring device comprises the first processor, wherein execution of the instructions causes the first processor to determine the health status of the cable accessory, and wherein execution of the instructions causes the second processor to perform the operations.

22. A method, comprising:

receiving, by at least one processor of a computing system, sensor data generated by at least one sensor configured to be coupled to a cable accessory of a cable, wherein the sensor is electrically coupled to a second layer of a joint body, the joint body comprising a plurality of concentric layers including a first layer configured to concentrically surround a center conductor of the cable and comprising an insulating material, a second layer comprising a conductive material, and a third layer comprising a resistive material configured to resist flow of electricity between the second layer and a ground conductor outside of the third layer, wherein the second layer is disposed between the first layer and the third layer;

determining, by the at least one processor, a health status of the cable accessory based at least in part on the sensor data; and

performing, by the at least one processor, at least one operation based on the health status of the cable accessory.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising outputting, by a communication unit of the cable accessory and via power line communication, data indicative of the health state of the cable accessory, wherein the communication unit is electrically coupled to the second layer of the splice body.

24. The method of any one of claims 22 to 23, further comprising drawing power from the cable by a power drawing circuit of the cable accessory.

25. The method of any one of claims 22 to 24,

wherein determining the health state of the cable accessory includes predicting whether the cable accessory will fail within a predetermined amount of time, and

wherein performing the operation comprises performing the operation in response to predicting that the cable accessory will fail within the predetermined amount of time.

26. The method of any of claims 22-25, wherein determining the health state of the cable accessory includes applying, by the at least one processor, a model to at least the sensor data generated by the one or more sensors of the cable accessory to determine an operational health state of the cable accessory.

27. The method of any one of claims 22 to 26, wherein the monitoring device comprises the memory and the at least one processor.

28. The method of any of claims 22-27, wherein the at least one processor comprises a first processor and a second processor, wherein the monitoring device comprises the first processor, wherein the first processor determines the health status of the cable accessory, and wherein the second processor performs the operation.

29. The method of any of claims 22-28, wherein performing the operation comprises outputting, by the at least one processor, a notification indicative of the health status of the cable accessory.

30. The method of any of claims 22-29, wherein performing the operation comprises outputting, by the at least one processor and for display, data representing a user interface indicative of the health status of the cable accessory.

31. The method of any of claims 22-30, wherein performing the operation comprises scheduling, by the at least one processor, maintenance or replacement of the cable accessory.

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of electrical equipment (including power cables and accessories) for electrical installations.

Background

The power grid includes many components that operate in a variety of different locations and conditions, such as above ground, underground, cold climates, hot climates, and so on. When a fault occurs in the grid, it may be difficult to determine the cause of the fault. For example, an electrical grid may include hundreds or thousands of discrete components, such as transformers, cables, cable joints, and the like, and a fault in the grid may be caused by a fault in any single component or collection of components. Root causes of such failures may include human installation errors, manufacturing defects, or wear on the components. While replacing electronic components can be expensive, merely locating a failure can also be time consuming and expensive. If a component fails in service, the total cost may include customer operational downtime, liability, safety or regulatory scrutiny, in addition to the actual cost incurred in locating and replacing the failed component. In addition, faulty components may pose a safety risk to utility workers, people, homes, buildings, or other infrastructure.

Disclosure of Invention

The present disclosure provides techniques for monitoring electrical devices of an electrical grid and predicting the likelihood of a fault event for such electrical devices. The electrical device may include an electrical cable accessory, which may include a cable connector body or a cable termination body. In some examples, the cable accessory includes a metal connector to electrically couple a center conductor of the cable to another object, such as a termination device or a center conductor of another cable. The cable fitting body of the cable accessory includes an insulator configured to surround the connector and a conductive or semi-conductive insulating shield (also referred to as a low side electrode) surrounding the insulator. In contrast to some cable accessories that include an outer conductor at ground potential (also referred to as a ground conductor) electrically connected to the insulating shield or the low side electrode, the cable accessory of the present disclosure may electrically isolate the insulating shield from the ground conductor via a separator layer that includes a high impedance material. Electrically isolating the low-side electrode from the ground conductor via the separator layer may enable the monitoring device of the cable accessory to perform a variety of functions.

The cable accessory includes a monitoring device that may have one or more sensors, one or more communication devices, and/or one or more power harvesting devices that may be electrically coupled to the insulating shield to perform a variety of functions. The one or more sensors output sensor data indicative of a condition of the cable accessory. Examples of such sensors include temperature sensors, partial discharge sensors, smoke sensors, gas sensors, acoustic sensors, and the like. The communication unit may transmit the sensed data to a remote computing system and/or apply local analysis to the sensed data.

According to aspects of the present disclosure, a computing system, such as a remote computing system and/or a monitoring device of a cable accessory, determines a health state of the cable accessory based at least in part on sensor data. For example, the computing system may determine in real-time whether the cable accessory will fail within a predetermined amount of time, e.g., based at least in part on the sensor data. By determining the health of the cable accessories and predicting before a fault event occurs, the computing system may more quickly and accurately identify potential fault events that may affect the distribution of power throughout the grid or the safety of workers and/or civilian life, etc. Further, the computing system may proactively and proactively generate notifications and/or change the operation of the power grid before a fault event occurs.

In some examples, the sensing device is configured to be coupled to a power cable. The sensing device includes a plurality of concentric layers and a monitoring device. The plurality of concentric layers includes a first layer configured to concentrically surround a center conductor of the cable and comprising an insulating material, a second layer comprising a conductive material, and a third layer comprising a resistive material configured to resist flow of electricity between the second layer and a ground conductor external to the third layer, wherein the second layer is disposed between the first layer and the third layer. The monitoring device includes a sensor electrically coupled to the second layer and configured to generate sensor data indicative of one or more conditions of the device, and a communication unit configured to output data indicative of the sensor data.

In some examples, a system includes a cable accessory configured to be coupled to a cable, at least one processor, and a memory. The cable accessory includes a connector body and a monitoring device. The joint body includes a plurality of concentric layers including a first layer configured to concentrically surround a center conductor of the cable and comprising an insulating material, a second layer comprising a conductive material, and a third layer comprising a resistive material configured to resist flow of electricity between the second layer and a ground conductor external to the third layer, wherein the second layer is disposed between the first layer and the third layer. The monitoring device includes a sensor electrically coupled to the second layer and configured to generate sensor data indicative of one or more conditions of the cable accessory. The memory includes instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to: receiving sensor data; determining a health status of the cable accessory based at least in part on the sensor data; and performing an operation in response to determining the health status of the cable accessory.

In some examples, a method includes receiving, by at least one processor of a computing system, sensor data generated by at least one sensor of a cable accessory configured to be coupled to a cable. The sensor is electrically coupled to a second layer of the joint body, which includes a plurality of concentric layers. The plurality of concentric layers includes a first layer, a second layer, and a third layer. The first layer is configured to concentrically surround a center conductor of the cable and comprises an insulating material. The second layer includes a conductive material. The third layer includes a resistive material configured to resist flow of electricity between the second layer and a ground conductor external to the third layer, wherein the second layer is disposed between the first layer and the third layer. The method includes determining, by at least one processor, a health status of the cable accessory based at least in part on the sensor data. The method also includes performing, by the at least one processor, at least one operation based on the health status of the cable accessory.

The details of one or more examples of the disclosure are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, objects, and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system in which electrical utility devices such as power lines with embedded sensors and communication capabilities are utilized in many work environments and managed by an electrical device management system (EEMS), in accordance with various techniques of the present disclosure.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an operational perspective view of the electrical device management system shown in fig. 1 in accordance with various techniques of the present disclosure.

Fig. 3 is a conceptual diagram of an example cable accessory configured to electrically and physically couple two cables according to various techniques of this disclosure.

Fig. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example gateway configured to communicate with a cable accessory and an EEMS in accordance with various techniques of the present disclosure.

Fig. 5 is an example graphical user interface of an electrical device management system, according to techniques of this disclosure.

Fig. 6 is a flowchart illustrating exemplary operations performed by one or more computing devices configured to monitor electrical utility equipment according to various techniques of the present disclosure.

Fig. 7A-7D are conceptual diagrams illustrating an example cable accessory according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 8 is a conceptual block diagram illustrating an example control unit for a cable accessory according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 9A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to detect a partial discharge event according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 9B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 9A according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 10A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to measure voltage according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 10B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 10A, according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 11A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to harvest energy from power transmitted in a cable according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 11B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 11A, according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 12 is an exemplary circuit diagram illustrating an exemplary power harvesting device according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 13A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to transmit data via a cable according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 13B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 13A, according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 14 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory electrically and physically coupling two cables according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 15 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory electrically and physically coupling two cables according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

Fig. 16A-16B are conceptual diagrams illustrating an example cable accessory electrically and physically coupling a cable to a cable termination device according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure.

It is to be understood that embodiments may be utilized and that structural modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The figures are not necessarily to scale. Like numbers used in the figures refer to like parts. It should be understood, however, that the use of a number to refer to a component in a given figure is not intended to limit the component in another figure labeled with the same number.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing system 2 including an Electrical Equipment Management System (EEMS)6 for monitoring power cables of a power grid. As described herein, the EEMS6 may allow authorized users to manage inspection, maintenance, and replacement of electrical equipment of the power grid, and to coordinate operation of the power grid.

Generally, the EEMS6 provides data collection, monitoring, activity logging, data storage, reporting, predictive analysis, and alert generation. For example, the EEMS6 may include a fundamental analysis engine and an alert system for predicting a failure event of an electrical equipment article according to various examples described herein. Generally, a fault event may refer to an interruption in power transfer between a power source and a power consumer, for example, caused by degradation or breakage of an article of electrical equipment (e.g., a cable joint).

As described further below, the EEMS6 provides a suite of integrated electrical device management tools and implements the various techniques of the present disclosure. That is, the EEMS6 provides a system for managing electrical equipment (e.g., cables, connectors, transformers, etc.) within one or more physical environments 8, which may be cities, communities, buildings, construction sites, or any physical environment. The techniques of this disclosure may be implemented within various portions of system 2.

As shown in the example of fig. 1, the system 2 represents a computing environment in which computing devices within a plurality of physical environments 8A, 8B (collectively referred to as environments 8) are in electronic communication with the EEMS6 via one or more computer networks 4. Each physical environment 8 represents a physical environment in which one or more power lines 24A-24D (collectively, power lines 24) provide power from a power source (e.g., a power plant) to one or more consumers (e.g., a business, a home, a government facility, etc.).

In this example, environment 8A is shown generally with electrical device 20, while environment 8B is shown in expanded form to provide a more detailed example. In the example of fig. 1, a plurality of electrical equipment articles 20 are included, such as one or more power delivery nodes 22A-22N (collectively power delivery nodes 22), one or more power lines 24, one or more communications hubs 26A-26D (collectively communications hubs 26), and one or more gateways 28.

In the example of fig. 1, environment 8B includes a wireless communication hub 26 and/or one or more gateways 28. Generally, communication hub 26 and gateway 28 operate as communication devices for relaying communications between EEMS6 and monitoring devices 33 monitoring respective electrical equipment articles 20 (e.g., cable accessories 34). Communication hub 26 and gateway 28 may each be communicatively coupled to EEMS6 via wired and/or wireless communications. For example, wireless communication hub 26 and/or gateway 28 may include a cellular radio (e.g., GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc.),A radio part,Radio, Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN), etc. As another example, wireless communication hub 26 and/or gateway 28 may include a wired connection, such as a network interface card (e.g., an ethernet card), an optical transceiver, or any other type of device that may send and/or receive data. According to some examples, communication hub 24 and/or gateway 28 may communicate with other devices using power line communication techniques. In other words, in some examples, gateway 28 may communicate with power line 24The monitoring device 33 communicates. In some examples, wireless communication hub 26 and gateway 28 may be capable of buffering data in the event of a loss of communication with EEMS 6. Further, communication hub 26 and gateway 28 may be programmed via EEMS6 so that local alert rules may be installed and executed without requiring a connection to the cloud. Thus, communication hub 26 and gateway 28 may provide a relay for event data streams from monitoring devices 33 and provide a local computing environment for local alerting based on the event streams.

Power delivery node 22 may include one or more input lines for receiving power (e.g., directly from a power source or indirectly via another power delivery node 22) and one or more output lines for distributing power to consumers (e.g., homes, businesses, etc.) either directly or indirectly (e.g., via another power delivery node 22). The power delivery node 22 may include a transformer to step up or step down the voltage. In some examples, power delivery node 22A may be a relatively small node, such as an electrical control cabinet, a distribution substation, a column transformer, or a pad transformer, for distributing power to homes within a community. As another example, power delivery node 22N may be a relatively large node (e.g., a transmission substation) that distributes power to other power delivery nodes (e.g., a distribution substation) such that the other power delivery nodes further distribute power to consumers (e.g., homes, businesses, etc.).

The power line 24 may transmit power from a power source (e.g., a power plant) to a power consumer, such as a business or home. The power line 24 may be underground, underwater, or overhead (e.g., from wooden poles, metal structures, etc.). The power line 24 may be used to transmit power at a relatively high voltage (e.g., it may transmit between about 12 volts and about 240 volts depending on the particular application and geographic area as compared to cables used within a home). For example, the power line 24 may transmit power above about 600 volts (e.g., between about 600 volts and about 1,000 volts). However, it should be understood that the power line 24 may transmit power over any voltage and/or frequency range. For example, the lines 24 may transmit power over different voltage ranges. In some examples, the first type of line 24 may transmit voltages greater than approximately 1,000 volts, such as to distribute power between a residential or small commercial customer and a power source (e.g., an electrical utility). As another example, the second type of line 24 may transmit a voltage between about 1kV and about 69kV, such as to distribute power to urban and rural communities. The third type of line 24 may transmit voltages greater than about 69kV, such as to sub-transmit and connect large amounts of power to very large consumers.

The power line 24 includes a cable 32 and one or more cable accessories 34A-34J. Each cable 32 includes a conductor that may be radially surrounded by one or more layers of insulation. The cable 32 may include a single center conductor and multiple conductors (e.g., a three-phase or multi-conductor cable). Exemplary cable accessories 34 may include splices, separable connectors, terminals and connectors, and the like. In some examples, cable accessory 34 may include a cable connector configured to couple (e.g., electrically and physically couple) two or more cables 32. For example, as shown in fig. 1, cable accessory 34A electrically and physically couples cable 32A to cable 32B, cable accessory 34B electrically and physically couples cable 32B to cable 32C, and so on. In some examples, the terminals may be configured to couple (e.g., electrically and physically couple) the cable 32 to additional electrical equipment, such as a transformer, switchgear, power substation, enterprise, home, or other structure. For example, as shown in fig. 1, cable accessory 34C electrically and physically couples cable 32C to power substation 22A (e.g., a transformer coupled to power substation 22A).

The system 2 includes one or more cable monitoring devices 33A-33L (collectively monitoring devices 33) configured to monitor one or more conditions of the electrical equipment article 20. For example, the monitoring device 33 may be configured to monitor the condition of the electrical substation 22, the cable 32, the cable accessories 34, or other types of electrical equipment 20. The monitoring device 33 may be configured to attach or otherwise couple to the cable 32 and/or cable accessory 34. In some examples, the monitoring device 33 may be integrated within another device, such as the cable accessory 34, or may be a separate (e.g., stand-alone) device. In the example of fig. 1, cable accessories 34A, 34B, 34C, 34D, 34E, 34F, 34G, 34H, and 34I include monitoring devices 33A, 33B, 33C, 33D, 33E, 33F, 33G, 33H, and 33I, respectively, while monitoring device 33J is a stand-alone monitoring device that monitors power line 24D. Additionally, in the example of fig. 1, cable accessory 34K does not include a monitoring device.

The monitoring device 33 includes a sensor that generates sensor data indicative of an operational characteristic of the one or more cables 32 and/or cable accessories 34 or a condition of the electrical equipment. The sensors of the monitoring device 33 may include temperature sensors (e.g., located inside and/or outside of the cable accessory), partial discharge sensors, voltage and/or current sensors, and the like. In some examples, the monitoring device 33A includes one or more temperature sensors. For example, the monitoring device 33A may include an internal temperature sensor for monitoring a temperature inside the cable 32 or cable accessory 34 and/or an external temperature monitor for monitoring a temperature outside or on a surface of the cable 32 or cable accessory 34.

The monitoring device 33 may include a partial discharge sensor for detecting partial discharge events (e.g., within the cable accessory 34A). As used herein, a partial discharge event refers to a galvanic discharge that only partially bridges the gap between the electrodes of the cable (e.g., this may be caused by a gas discharge in the void of the cable). Further exemplary details of a monitoring device for sensing partial discharge events are described in us patent application 62/729,363 (attorney docket No. 1004-954USP1) entitled "power cable monitoring device including partial discharge SENSORs" (ELECRICAL POWER CABLE MONITORING DEVICE INCLUDING PARTIAL DISCHARGE SENSOR) filed on 9/10.2018, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. The monitoring device 33 may comprise a voltage and/or current sensor configured to measure the phase and/or magnitude of the voltage or current in the cable 32 or cable accessory 34.

The monitoring devices 33 each include or receive power from a power source. For example, the monitoring device 33A may include a battery. As another example, the monitoring device 33A may be coupled to a solar cell, a wind turbine, or other renewable or non-renewable power source. Exemplary details of a MONITORING device with a protective housing are described in U.S. patent application 62/729,320 (attorney docket No. 1004-. Additional exemplary details of MONITORING devices AND electrical equipment management systems are described in U.S. patent application 62/729,367 (attorney docket No. 1004 AND 950USP1) entitled "ELECTRICAL POWER CABLE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM HAVING ANALYTICS ENGINE WITH INTEGRATED MONITORING, ALERTING, AND PRE-FAULT EVENT PREDICTION" (power cable management system with analysis engine with integrated MONITORING, ALERTING, AND PRE-FAULT EVENT PREDICTION) filed on 9, 10, 2018, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

In some examples, monitoring device 33A may include a power harvesting device configured to harvest power from power line 24A. For example, the power harvesting device of the monitoring device 33A may receive power via power carried by the power line 24A, via a magnetic field generated by the power line 24A, or via heat within the power line 24A, the cable accessory 34A, or other device that generates heat when coupled to the power line 24A.

Generally, the monitoring device 33 is communicatively coupled to the EEMS 6. In some examples, the monitoring device 33 may include a transceiver for communicating with the EEMS6 (e.g., via the network 4). In some examples, monitoring device 33 communicates with EEMS6 via communication hub 26 and/or gateway 28. For example, monitoring device 33 may output data to gateway 28 and/or communication hub 26 via power line communication. As another example, monitoring device 33 may include a wireless communication device such as Or an RFID device that is readable by a mobile device reader (e.g., a vehicle that includes a reader to communicate with the monitoring device 33 when the vehicle is traveling around the environment 8B). The monitoring device 33 can transmit the health status or state of the cable 32 and the cable accessory 34Event data of a condition. The event data may include data indicative of sensor data generated by sensors of electrical device 20, equipment data of electrical device 20, analytical data, or a combination thereof. For example, the data indicative of sensor data may include at least a portion of sensor data generated by one or more sensors of monitoring device 33A, a summary of sensor data, a conclusion or result of an analysis performed on the sensor data, or a combination thereof. The device data (also referred to as equipment data) may include identification data (e.g., a unique identifier corresponding to a particular electrical equipment article 20), a device type (e.g., a transformer, a connector, a terminal connector, etc.), an event timestamp, location data (e.g., GPS coordinates of a particular electrical equipment article 20), manufacturing data (e.g., a manufacturer, a lot number, a serial number, a manufacturing date, etc.), installation data (e.g., an installation date, an identity of an installer or installation team), customer data (e.g., data identifying the number and/or type of customers served by the line, an address served by the line, etc.), power distribution data (e.g., a line type, such as ultra high voltage, medium voltage, etc.), or a combination thereof. In some examples, the event data includes analytical data, such as data indicating whether the electrical device is predicted to fail (e.g., whether a failure event is predicted to occur), a predicted or estimated remaining life of the electrical device, a predicted confidence interval, and/or the like. In some examples, monitoring device 33 may receive data from EEMS6, communication hub 26, gateway 28, and/or cable accessory 34. For example, the EEMS6 may transmit a request for sensor data, firmware updates, or other data to the monitoring device 33.

In some examples, the monitoring device 33 includes a wireless network configured to transmit data over the wireless network (e.g.,etc.) a wireless transceiver that transmits data. For example, as shown in fig. 1, monitoring devices 33A and 33B may be communicatively coupled to wireless communication hubs 26A and 26B, respectively. In this manner, monitoring devices 33A and 33B may communicate with EEMS6 via wireless communication hubs 26A, 26B. In some examples, the monitoring device 33A-33C may communicate with EEMS6 via gateway 28. For example, monitoring device 33A may transmit data to monitoring device 33B, and monitoring device 33B may transmit data to monitoring device 33C (e.g., some or all of monitoring devices 33 may form a mesh network). Monitoring device 33C may transmit data from monitoring devices 33A-33C to gateway 28, which may forward the data from monitoring devices 33A-33C to EEMS 6.

The monitoring device 33 may include a wired transceiver. For example, monitoring devices 33 may be configured to communicate with cable accessories 34, communication hub 26, gateway 28, and/or EEMS6 via power line communication or with each other via copper or fiber optic communication lines. In other words, in some examples, the monitoring device 33 may include a transceiver configured to communicate over the power line 24. In this manner, the power line 24 may transmit power from the power source to the power consumer, as well as transmit data between the EEMS6 and the monitoring device 33. Additional details of the monitoring device 33 are described with reference to fig. 3.

One or more electrical equipment articles 20 may be configured to perform the analysis locally. In some examples, monitoring device 33A may analyze sensor data generated by sensors of monitoring device 33A to determine a health state of cable accessory 34A. Monitoring device 33A may determine the health of cable accessory 34A by determining whether cable accessory 34A is predicted to fail (e.g., experience a failure event) within a threshold amount of time, determining an estimated remaining life, and so forth. The monitoring device 33A may output analysis data based on the analysis result. For example, the analytical data may include data indicative of the health of cable accessory 34A. Monitoring device 33A may output event data including the analysis data to EEMS6 (e.g., via communication hub 26A, via monitoring device 33B and communication hub 26B, and/or via communication hubs 26B, 26C and gateway 28).

The system 2 includes a computing device 16 through which subscribers 18A-18N (collectively subscribers 18) may interact with the EEMS6 via the network 4. For purposes of example, the end-user computing device 16 may be a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a mobile device such as a tablet computer, a smart phone, and the like.

User 18 interacts with EEMS6 to control and actively manage many aspects of electrical device 20, such as accessing and viewing event records, analysis, and reports. For example, subscriber 18 may review event data collected and stored by EEMS 6. Further, user 18 may interact with EEMS6 to perform asset tracking and schedule maintenance or replacement for pieces of electrical equipment 20 (e.g., monitoring devices 33, cables 32, and/or cable accessories 34). The EEMS6 may allow the user 18 to create and complete a digital checklist with respect to maintenance and/or replacement procedures and synchronize any results of these procedures from the computing device 16 to the EEMS 6.

Additionally, as described herein, the EEMS6 integrates an event processing platform configured to process hundreds, thousands, or even millions of concurrent event streams from the monitoring devices 33 monitoring the respective electrical equipment article 20 (e.g., the cable accessories 34). The underlying analysis engine of EEMS6 applies historical data and models to the inbound flow to compute assertions, such as abnormal or predicted fault event occurrences, identified based on data from sensors of electrical device 20. In addition, EEMS6 provides real-time alerts and reports to notify user 18 of any predicted events, anomalies, trends, and the like.

The analysis engine of EEMS6 may, in some examples, apply analysis to identify relationships or correlations between sensor data, environmental conditions, geographic areas, or other factors, and analyze the impact on the fault event. In some examples, EEMS6 may determine the health status of one or more cable accessories 34 or other electrical devices. For example, EEMS6 may determine or predict a situation that may lead to a fault event based on data collected across a population of electrical devices 20.

In some examples, the EEMS6 may determine whether the electrical equipment article 20 should be repaired or replaced, prioritize maintenance (e.g., repair or replacement) procedures, create work orders, assign individuals or teams to perform maintenance procedures, and the like. According to some examples, EEMS6 may recommend or automatically reroute power based on the analysis results.

The EEMS6 may process data of one or more entities such as electric utilities. For example, the EEMS6 may receive event data from electrical devices of a single electrical facility and may provide analysis and reporting for the single electrical facility. As another example, the EEMS6 may receive event data from a plurality of electrical facilities and provide analysis and reporting for each of the electrical facilities. By receiving data from multiple power facilities, the EEMS6 may provide more robust prediction capabilities, for example, by training a machine learning model with a larger data set than each power facility that each utilizes a separate EEMS 6.

In this manner, the EEMS6 integrates a comprehensive tool for managing the electrical devices 20 through the underlying analysis engine and communication system to provide data collection, monitoring, activity logging, reporting, and alert generation. In addition, EEMS6 provides a communication system between the various elements of system 2 that is operated and utilized by these elements. Subscriber 18 may access EEMS6 to view the results of any analysis performed by EEMS6 on data collected from monitoring device 33. In some examples, the EEMS6 may present a web-based interface via a web server (e.g., an HTTP server), or may deploy a client application for the computing device 16 used by the user 18.

In some examples, the EEMS6 may provide a database query engine for directly querying the EEMS6 to view collected event (e.g., sensor) data and any results of the analysis engine, e.g., via a dashboard, alert notifications, reports, etc. That is, user 18 or software executing on computing device 16 may submit a query to EEMS6 and receive data corresponding to the query for presentation in the form of one or more reports or dashboards. Such dashboards may provide various insights about the system 2, such as baseline ("regular") operation across the environment 8, identification of any abnormal environment and/or electrical devices 20, identification of any geographic area within the environment 2 where abnormal activity (e.g., a failure event) has occurred or is predicted to occur, and so forth.

As explained in detail below, the EEMS6 may simplify the workflow for the individual responsible for monitoring the electrical devices 20 of an entity or environment. That is, the techniques of this disclosure may enable active electrical equipment management and allow organizations to take preventative or corrective measures with respect to particular electrical equipment pieces.

As one example, the underlying analysis engine of EEMS6 may be configured to compute and present metrics for electrical devices within a given environment 8 or across multiple environments for an organization. For example, the EEMS6 may be configured to collect data and provide aggregated fault metrics and predictive fault analysis across one or more environments 8. Further, user 18 may set a reference for any fault event occurrence and EEMS6 may track the actual fault event relative to the reference.

As another example, if certain combinations of conditions exist, the EEMS6 may further trigger an alert, for example, to expedite inspection or repair of one or more electrical equipment articles 20, such as one of the cable accessories 34. In this manner, EEMS6 may identify a single electrical equipment article 20 that is predicted to fail and prompt user 18 to inspect and/or replace the article prior to the electrical equipment article failing.

Although EEMS6 is described as including an analysis engine, in some examples, communication unit 26, gateway 28, and/or monitoring device 33 may perform some or all of the functions of EEMS 6. For example, the monitoring device 33A may analyze sensor data generated by one or more sensors of the monitoring device 33 (e.g., from the monitoring device 33A itself, other monitoring devices, or a combination thereof). The monitoring device 33 may output (e.g., via the communication unit 26) the conclusion, assertion, or result of the analysis to the EEMS 6. Similarly, gateway 28 may receive data from multiple monitoring devices 33, analyze the data, and send messages to EEMS6 and/or one or more monitoring devices 33.

In this way, the EEMS may monitor the event data from the monitoring device to determine the health status of the electrical equipment article and/or predict whether the electrical equipment article will fail. By determining the state of health or predicting whether an electrical equipment article will fail, the EEMS may enable the electrical utility to more efficiently determine where the failure or potential failure occurred and manage or prioritize the repair or replacement of electrical equipment, which may prevent or reduce failure events in the electrical grid.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram providing an operational perspective view of an EEMS6 capable of supporting multiple different environments 8 each having multiple electrical equipment articles 20 when hosted as a cloud-based platform. In the example of fig. 2, the components of EEMS6 are arranged in accordance with a plurality of logical layers implementing the techniques of this disclosure. Each layer may be implemented by one or more modules comprising hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software.

In fig. 2, monitoring device 33 (direct or communication hub 26 and/or gateway 28) and computing device 60 operate as a client 63 that communicates with EEMS6 via interface layer 64. Computing device 60 typically executes client software applications, such as desktop applications, mobile applications, and web applications. Computing device 60 may represent any of computing devices 16 of fig. 1. Examples of computing device 60 may include, but are not limited to, portable or mobile computing devices (e.g., smart phones, wearable computing devices, tablets), laptop computers, desktop computers, smart television platforms, and servers, among others.

As further described in this disclosure, the monitoring device 33 communicates with the EEMS6 (either directly or via the communication hub 26 and/or gateway 28) to provide a data stream collected from embedded sensors and other monitoring circuitry, and to receive alerts, configuration data, and other communications from the EEMS 6. A client application executing on computing device 60 may communicate with EEMS6 to send and receive data retrieved, stored, generated, and/or otherwise processed by services 68A-68H (collectively referred to as services 68). For example, the client application may request and edit event data, including analysis data stored at and/or managed by the EEMS 6. In some examples, the client application may request and display aggregated event data that summarizes or otherwise aggregates numerous single instances of the fault event and corresponding data collected from the monitoring devices 33 and/or generated by the EEMS 6. The client application may interact with the EEMS6 to query for analytical data regarding past and predicted failure events. In some examples, the client application may output data received (e.g., displayed) from EEMS6 to visualize such data to a user of client 63. As further illustrated and described below, the EEMS6 may provide data to a client application that outputs the data for display in a user interface.

Client applications executing on computing device 60 may be implemented for different platforms but include similar or identical functionality. For example, the client application may be a desktop application compiled to run on a desktop operating system, or may be a mobile application compiled to run on a mobile operating system. As another example, the client application may be a web application, such as a web browser that displays a web page received from the EEMS 6. In the web application example, EEMS6 may receive requests from a web application (e.g., a web browser), process the requests, and send one or more responses back to the web application. In this manner, the collection of web pages, the web application of the client process, and the server-side process performed by EEMS6 collectively provide functionality to perform the techniques of this disclosure. In this manner, the client applications use the various services of the EEMS6 in accordance with the techniques of this disclosure, and these applications may operate within a variety of different computing environments (e.g., a desktop operating system, an embedded circuit or processor of a mobile operating system or a web browser, etc.).

As shown in fig. 2, EEMS6 includes an interface layer 64 that represents a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or protocol interfaces presented and supported by EEMS 6. The interface layer 64 initially receives messages from any of the clients 63 for further processing at the EEMS 6. Thus, the interface layer 64 may provide one or more interfaces available to client applications executing on the client 63. In some examples, the interface may be an Application Programming Interface (API) that is accessed over a network. The interface layer 64 may be implemented with one or more web servers. One or more web servers can receive incoming requests, process and/or forward data from the requests to the service 68, and provide one or more responses to the client application that originally sent the request based on the data received from the service 68. In some examples, the one or more web servers implementing interface layer 64 may include a runtime environment to deploy program logic that provides the one or more interfaces. As described further below, each service may provide a set of one or more interfaces that are accessible via the interface layer 64.

In some examples, the interface layer 64 may provide a representational state transfer (RESTful) interface that interacts with services and manipulates resources of the EEMS6 using HTTP methods. In such examples, service 68 may generate a JavaScript Object notification (JSON) message that interface layer 64 sends back to the client application that submitted the initial request. In some examples, the interface layer 64 provides a web service that uses Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to process requests from client applications. In other examples, interface layer 64 may use Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) to process requests from clients 63. Upon receiving a request from a client application to use one or more services 68, the interface layer 64 sends the data to the application layer 66 that includes the services 68.

The data layer 72 of the EEMS6 represents a data repository that provides persistence for data in the EEMS6 using one or more data repositories 74. A data repository may generally be any data structure or software that stores and/or manages data. Examples of data repositories include, but are not limited to, relational databases, multidimensional databases, maps, and hash tables, to name a few. The data layer 72 may be implemented using relational database management system (RDBMS) software to manage data in the data repository 74. The RDBMS software may manage one or more data repositories 74 that are accessible using Structured Query Language (SQL). Data in one or more databases may be stored, retrieved, and modified using RDBMS software. In some examples, the data layer 72 may be implemented using an object database management system (ODBMS), an online analytical processing (OLAP) database, or other suitable data management system.

Electrical equipment data 74A of data repository 74 may include data corresponding to a plurality of electrical equipment articles, such as cable accessories 34. In some examples, electrical equipment data 74A may include equipment or equipment data, manufacturing data, installation data, customer data, power distribution data, and the like. For example, for each of the cable accessories 34, the electrical device data 74A may include data identifying a date of manufacture, a date of installation, a location (e.g., GPS coordinates, street address, etc.), an entity that installed the cable accessory, a unique identifier (e.g., serial number), a type of cable accessory, and so forth. For example, prior to engaging cables 32A and 32B of fig. 1 with cable accessory 34A, the installer may scan (e.g., using one of computing devices 16, such as a mobile phone) a barcode on cable accessory 34A that includes device data representing a unique identifier, a date of manufacture, etc., and may upload the device data to EEMS 6. In some cases, the mobile device may append data to the device data, such as the current date as the installation date and GPS coordinates, and may transmit the device data to the EEMS6, such that the EEMS6 may store the device data for the cable accessory 34A in the electrical equipment data 74A.

As shown in fig. 2, the EEMS6 further comprises an application layer 66 representing a set of services 68 for implementing most of the basic operations of the EEMS 6. The application layer 66 receives data included in requests received from the client devices 63 and further processes the data in accordance with one or more of the services 68 invoked by the requests. The application layer 66 may be implemented as one or more discrete software services executing on one or more application servers (e.g., physical or virtual machines). That is, the application server provides a runtime environment for executing the service 68. In some examples, the functionality of the functional interface layer 64 and the application layer 66 as described above may be implemented at the same server.

As one example, the application layer 66 may include one or more separate software services 68 (e.g., processes) that communicate with each other (e.g., via a logical service bus 70). Service bus 70 generally represents a logical interconnection or set of interfaces that allow different services to send messages to other services, such as through a publish/subscribe communications model. For example, each of the services 68 may subscribe to a particular type of message based on criteria set for the respective service. When a service publishes a particular type of message on the service bus 70, other services subscribing to that type of message will receive the message. In this manner, each of the services 68 may communicate data with each other. As another example, the service 68 may communicate in a point-to-point manner using sockets or other communication mechanisms.

As shown in fig. 2, each of the services 68 is implemented in a modular form within the EEMS 6. Although shown as separate modules for each service, in some examples, the functionality of two or more services may be combined into a single module or component. Each of the services 68 may be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of hardware and software. Further, the services 68 may be implemented as separate devices, separate virtual machines or containers, processes, threads, or software instructions typically for execution on one or more physical processors. In some examples, one or more of the services 68 may each provide one or more interfaces exposed through the interface layer 64. Accordingly, client applications of computing device 60 may invoke one or more interfaces of one or more of services 68 to perform the techniques of this disclosure.

In accordance with the techniques of this disclosure, the service 68 may include an event processing platform that includes an event endpoint front end 68A, an event selector 68B, and an event handler 68C. Event endpoint front-end 68A operates as a front-end interface for receiving and sending communications to monitoring devices 33 (e.g., directly or via communication hub 26 and/or gateway 28). In other words, the event endpoint front end 68A operates as a front-line interface to the monitoring devices 33 deployed within the environment 8 of fig. 1. In some cases, event endpoint front end 68A may be implemented as a derived plurality of tasks or jobs to receive from monitoring device 33 (e.g., integrated within cable accessory 34) individual inbound communications of event stream 69 carrying data sensed and captured by sensors of monitoring device 33. For example, when receiving the event stream 69, the event endpoint front end 68A may derive the task of quickly enqueuing inbound communications (referred to as an event) and closing the communication session, thereby providing high speed processing and scalability. Each incoming communication may, for example, carry recently captured data representing sensed conditions, motion, temperature, operation, or other data (commonly referred to as multiple events). The communications exchanged between the event endpoint front end 68A and the cable accessory 34 may be real-time or pseudo-real-time, depending on communication delay and continuity.

Event selector 68B operates on event streams 69 received from monitoring devices 33, communication hub 26, and/or gateways 28 via front end 68A and determines a priority associated with an incoming event based on a rule or classification. Based on the priority, the event selector 68B enqueues the events for subsequent processing by the event handler 68C or a High Priority (HP) event handler 68D. Additional computing resources and objects may be dedicated to the HP event handler 68D to ensure response to critical events, such as actual failure or predicted imminent failure of the cable accessory 34. In response to processing the high priority event, the HP event handler 68D may immediately invoke the notification service 68E to generate an alert, instruction, warning, or other similar message for output to the monitoring device 33 or the user 18 of the computing device 60. Events not classified as high priority are consumed and processed by event handler 68C.

Generally speaking, the event handler 68C or the High Priority (HP) event handler 68D operates on incoming event streams to update the event data 74B within the data repository 74. Generally, event data 74B includes data indicative of sensor data obtained from monitoring device 33 (e.g., integrated with cable accessory 34), device data of electrical equipment 20 of fig. 1, analytical data, or a combination thereof. For example, in some cases, event data 74B may include the entire stream of data samples obtained from the sensors of monitoring device 33. In other cases, event data 74B may include a subset of such data, e.g., associated with a particular time period. As another example, event data 74B may include analytics data indicative of the results of sensor data analytics performed by one or more of monitoring device 33, communication hub 26, and/or gateway 28.

Event handlers 68C, 68D may create, read, update, and delete event data stored in event data 74B. Event data may be stored in a respective database record as a structure including name/value pairs of the data, such as a data table specified in a row/column format. For example, the name of the column may be an "accessory ID" and the value may be a unique identification number (e.g., a unique identifier) corresponding to the particular electrical equipment article 20 of fig. 1. The event record may include data such as, but not limited to: a device identification, a data acquisition timestamp, and data indicative of one or more sensed parameters.

The event selector 68B may direct the incoming event stream to a flow analysis service 68F configured to perform deep processing of the incoming event stream to perform real-time analysis. Flow analysis service 68F may, for example, be configured to process multiple flows of event data 74B in real-time as event data 74B is received and compare the multiple flows of event data to historical data and model 74C. In this manner, the flow analysis service 68F may be configured to detect anomalies, transform incoming event data values, or trigger alerts when a possible failure event (e.g., a failure of an electrical equipment article 20) is predicted. Historical data and models 74C may include, for example, one or more trained models configured to predict whether a failure event will occur, the expected remaining life of one or more electrical equipment articles 20, and/or prioritize maintenance (e.g., repair or replacement) of the electrical equipment articles. Further, flow analysis service 68F may generate output for transmission to cable accessory 34 (e.g., via notification service 68E) or computing device 60 (e.g., via notification service 68G or record management and reporting service 68G).

In this manner, the analytics service 68F processes inbound event streams (potentially hundreds or thousands of event streams) from the monitoring devices 33 within the environment 8 to apply the historical data and the models 74C to compute assertions, such as predicted occurrences of identified anomalies or impending failure events, based on conditions sensed by the sensors of the monitoring devices 33. The flow analysis service 68F may issue the assertion to the notification service 68F and/or record management over the service bus 70 for output to any of the clients 63.

In this manner, the analytics service 68F may be configured as an active electrical device management system that predicts fault events (e.g., faults that may be imminent or that may occur within a threshold amount of time) and provides real-time alerts and reports. Further, the analytics service 68F may be a decision support system that provides techniques for processing inbound streams of event data to generate assertions in the form of statistics, conclusions, and/or suggestions for electrical devices 20 of facilities, workers, and other remote users. For example, analysis service 68F may apply historical data and models 74C to determine a probability of failure of one or more electrical equipment articles 20 (e.g., cable accessories 34), prioritize repair and/or replacement of electrical equipment articles, and the like. Accordingly, analysis service 68F may maintain or otherwise use one or more models that provide risk metrics to predict failure events.

In some examples, analysis service 68F may generate a user interface based on the process data stored by EEMS6 to provide operational data to any of clients 63. For example, the analytics service 68F may generate dashboards, warning notifications, reports, and the like for output at any of the clients 63. Such data may provide various insights regarding baseline ("regular") operation across environment 8 or electrical device 20 (e.g., cable accessories 34), identification of any abnormal characteristics of electrical device 20 that may cause a failure of at least a portion of the electrical grid within environment 8, and so forth.

As described above, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, the EEMS6 may apply analysis to predict the likelihood of a failure event. While other techniques may be used, in one exemplary implementation, the analytics service 68F utilizes machine learning in operating on event streams in order to perform real-time analytics. That is, the analytics service 68F may include executable code generated by applying machine learning to training event stream data and known fault events to detect patterns. The executable code may take the form of software instructions or a set of rules and is generally referred to as a model, which may then be applied to the event stream 69 for detecting similar patterns and predicting impending events. For example, analysis service 68F may determine a condition or health state (e.g., a predicted remaining life) of the respective article of equipment 20 (e.g., cable accessory 34A), or predict whether/when the respective article of electrical equipment 20 will experience a fault event. That is, EEMS6 may determine a likelihood or probability of a fault event based on applying historical data and model 74C to event data received from electrical device 20. For example, the EEMS6 may apply the historical data and the model 74C to event data from the monitoring device 33 to calculate an assertion, such as a predicted occurrence of an abnormal or impending fault event, based on sensor data, environmental conditions, and/or other event data corresponding to the electrical equipment 20 monitored by the monitoring device 33.

The EEMS6 may apply the analysis to identify relationships or correlations between sensed data from sensors of the monitoring device 33 monitoring the electrical apparatus 20, environmental conditions of an environment in which the electrical apparatus 20 is located, a geographical area in which the electrical apparatus 20 is located, a type of the electrical apparatus 20, a manufacturer and/or installer of the electrical apparatus, and/or the like. The EEMS6 may determine conditions that may cause or predict an occurrence of a fault event that may cause an abnormally high altitude within a certain environment or geographic area based on data collected across a population of electrical devices 20. The EEMS6 may generate alert data based on the analysis of the event data and transmit the alert data to the computing device 16 and/or the monitoring device 33. Thus, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, the EEMS6 may determine event data for the monitoring device 33, generate status indications, determine performance analysis, and/or perform anticipatory/preemptive actions (e.g., schedule maintenance or replacement) based on the likelihood of a failure event.

In some examples, analytics service 68F may generate separate models for different environments, geographic areas, types of electrical devices, or combinations thereof. The analysis service 68F may update the model based on the event data received from the monitoring device 33. For example, the analytics service 68F may update the model for a particular geographic area, a particular type of electrical equipment, a particular environment, or a combination thereof based on event data received from the monitoring device 33. Alternatively or additionally, analytics service 68F may communicate all or part of the generated code and/or machine learning model to monitoring device 33, communication hub 26, and/or gateway 28 for execution thereon to provide local alerts in near real-time.

Exemplary machine learning techniques that may be used to generate model 74C may include various learning approaches such as supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and semi-supervised learning. Exemplary types of algorithms include bayesian algorithms, clustering algorithms, decision tree algorithms, regularization algorithms, regression algorithms, instance based algorithms, artificial neural network algorithms, deep learning algorithms, dimension reduction algorithms, and the like. Various examples of specific algorithms include bayesian linear regression, boosted decision tree regression and neural network regression, back propagation neural networks, Apriori algorithms, K-means clustering, K-nearest neighbor (kNN), Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ), self-organised maps (SOM), Local Weighted Learning (LWL), ridge regression, Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operators (LASSO), elastic networks and Least Angle Regression (LARS), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Principal Component Regression (PCR).

EEMS6 may initially train model 74C based on a training set of event data and, in some examples, based on data of corresponding fault events. As a further exemplary illustration, the EEMS6 may select a training set comprising a set of training instances, each training instance comprising an association between event data and a failure event. For each training instance in the training set, EEMS6 may modify one or more models 74C based on the training instance's specific event data and the specific fault event, thereby changing the likelihood of the specific fault event predicted by the model in response to subsequent event data applied to model 74C. In some examples, the training instance may be based on real-time or periodic data generated while the EEMS6 manages data for one or more electrical equipment items and/or operating environments. Thus, one or more training instances of the set of training instances may be generated using one or more electrical equipment articles 20 after the EEMS6 performs operations related to detecting or predicting a failure event of the electrical equipment article 20.

By training the model based on the training set, the analytics service 68F may apply the model to the event data and generate a higher probability or score for failure events that correspond to a training feature set that is more similar to the particular feature set. In the same manner, the analysis service 68F may apply the model to the event data and generate a lower probability or score for failure events that correspond to training feature sets that are less similar to the particular feature set. Accordingly, the analysis service 68F may train one or more models 74C, receive event data from one or more monitoring devices 33 monitoring respective articles of electrical equipment 20, and output one or more probabilities or scores indicative of a likelihood of a fault event based on the received event data vectors.

In some examples, analytics service 68F may train one or more models 74C based on sensor data generated by sensors of monitoring device 33. For example, the analysis service 68F may determine a fault in which the temperature prediction is imminent based on the training data. For example, arcing, partial discharge, connector resistance increase, tracking, and other processes may cause temperature to rise, resulting in a fault event. As another example, the analytics service 68F may determine that acoustic emissions (e.g., arcing, partial discharge, and gas release) are related to fault events based on training data. As another example, the analysis service 68F may determine that electromagnetic emissions (e.g., resulting from partial discharges and arcing) and/or current and/or voltage on the line may also provide an indication of a fault event. As another example, the analysis service 68F may determine that the individual temperatures do not indicate a fault based on the training data unless the damage progresses to a near complete fault (e.g., because the high temperatures may be due to high currents). Rather, analysis service 68F determines the life expectancy and the failure of electrical device 20 based on the training data based at least in part on the line current of cable 32 and the temperature of cable accessories 34. In some examples, analysis service 68F may determine a relationship between the line current of cable 32 and the temperature of cable accessory 34 based on a direct current measurement (e.g., by a power harvesting coil, an inductive communication coil, or a separate inductive coil of cable accessory 34). As another example, analysis service 68F may determine, based on the training data, that a difference between a temperature of the cable (e.g., cable 32A) and a temperature of a corresponding cable accessory (e.g., accessory 34A) to which the cable is directly coupled indicates damage to cable accessory 34A, a life of cable accessory 34A, and/or whether or when cable accessory 34A is predicted to experience a fault event.

In some examples, the analytics service 68F trains one or more models 74C based on fault events of electrical equipment articles 20 and/or operating environments having similar characteristics (e.g., the same type). In some examples, "the same type" may refer to identical but separate electrical equipment article instances. In other examples, "the same type" may not refer to exactly the same instance of electrical equipment. For example, although not identical, the same type may refer to an article of electrical equipment in the same class or category of electrical equipment, an electrical equipment of the same model, or the same group of one or more shared functional or physical characteristics, and so forth. Similarly, the same type of environment may refer to instances of the exact same but separate types of work environments. In other examples, although not identical, the same type may refer to environments in the same class or category of environment, such as "underground cable," "underwater cable," a particular state of the united states, climate, and so forth.

In some examples, the analytics service 68F may predict the fault event based at least in part on applying the model 74C to the event data 69 (such as sensor data generated by the monitoring devices 33 monitoring the electrical equipment article 20). For example, analysis service 68F may apply one or more models 74C to sensor data indicative of temperature, acoustic emissions, electromagnetic emissions, current, voltage, or any combination thereof to determine a state of health (e.g., a predicted remaining life) of electrical device 20 and/or to predict a fault event of electrical device 20. In some examples, analytics service 68F may train model 74C based on data from multiple sensors, and may apply one or more models 74C to sensor data from multiple different sensors to more accurately predict the health of a given electrical equipment article and whether or when electrical equipment article 20 will fail.

Analysis service 68F may apply one or more models 74C to the sensor data and other event data to determine the health of electrical equipment article 20 and/or whether or when the electrical equipment article is about to fail. In some examples, analytics service 68F may apply one or more models 74C to the sensor data and the device data to predict a state of health and/or a fault event. For example, analytics service 68F may predict whether cable accessory 34A will fail based on the sensor data and the type of cable accessory 34A. For example, the analytics service 68F may determine that a first type of cable accessory (e.g., a splice performed via "heat shrink") has a different failure mode than a second type of cable accessory (e.g., a splice performed via "cold shrink"). As another example, analysis service 68F may determine that a cable accessory 34 installed by one installer or in one geographic location has a different failure mode than a cable accessory 34 installed by a different installer or geographic location.

According to aspects of the present disclosure, EEMS6 may schedule maintenance (e.g., repair or replacement) operations for electrical equipment 20 based on the event data. For example, analysis service 68F may predict the remaining life of cable accessory 34A, determine that the predicted remaining life of cable accessory 34A is less than a threshold life, and schedule a replacement operation for cable accessory 34A based on such data. As another example, analysis service 68F may rank maintenance operations for a plurality of electrical equipment articles based on, for example, predicted remaining life, confidence of the prediction, importance of the various electrical equipment articles (e.g., number of customers serviced by each article), and the like. In some examples, analysis service 68F may automatically order replacement of electrical device 20 based on one or more models 74C.

Additionally or alternatively, according to aspects of the present disclosure, event data from the monitoring device 33 may be used to determine alerts and/or actively control operation of the electrical device 20. For example, the EEMS6 may reconfigure or reroute power to transmit power over another wire (e.g., 24B of fig. 1) in response to predicting an impending failure of an electrical device along a particular wire (e.g., 24A of fig. 1). As another example, analysis service 68F may output a notification (e.g., to computing device 16) in response to determining a state of health of electrical equipment 20 or predicting a fault event. For example, analysis service 68F may output a notification to one or more computing devices 16 via notification service 68E.

Likewise, the EEMS6 may determine the performance characteristics described above and/or generate alert data based on applying the event data to the model 74C. However, while these determinations are described with respect to EEMS6, one or more other computing devices, such as cable accessories 34, communication hub 26, and/or gateway 28, may be configured to perform all or a subset of such functions, as described in greater detail herein.

The record management and reporting service 68G processes and responds to messages and queries received from the computing device 60 via the interface layer 64. For example, the record management and reporting service 68G may receive requests from client computing devices for event data related to individual electrical equipment articles 20, groups of electrical equipment articles (e.g., article types), geographic areas of the environment 8, or the entire environment 8. In response, the record management and reporting service 68G accesses the event data based on the request. Upon retrieving the event data, the record management and reporting service 68G builds an output response to the client application that initially requested the data. In some examples, the data may be included in a document, such as an HTML document, or the data may be encoded in JSON format or rendered by a dashboard application executing on the requesting client computing device. For example, as further described in this disclosure, an exemplary user interface including event data is depicted in the figures.

As an additional example, the record management and reporting service 68G may receive requests for discovery, analysis, and correlation of event data (e.g., event data for monitoring one or more monitoring devices 33 of respective electrical equipment articles 20). For example, record management and reporting service 68G may receive query requests for event data 74B from client applications within historical time frames, such as a user may view the event data for a period of time and/or a computing device may analyze the event data for a period of time.

In an exemplary implementation, the services 68 may also include a security service 68H that authenticates and authorizes the user and the request using the EEMS 6. In particular, the security service 68H may receive authentication requests from client applications and/or other services 68 to enter data in the data layer 72 and/or to perform processing in the application layer 66. The authentication request may include credentials such as a username and password. Security service 68H may query security data 74E to determine whether the username and password combination is valid. Security data 74E may include security data in the form of authorization credentials, policies, and any other data for controlling access to EEMS 6. As described above, the security data 74E may include authorization credentials, such as a combination of a valid username and password for an authorized user of the EEMS 6. Other credentials may include a device identifier or device profile that allows access to EEMS 6.

Security service 68H may provide auditing and logging functionality for operations performed at EEMS 6. For example, security service 68H may record operations performed by service 68 and/or data entered by service 68 in data layer 72. Security service 68H may store audit data, such as logged operations, accessed data, and rule processing results, in audit data 74D. In some examples, the security service 68H may generate an event in response to one or more rules being satisfied. Security service 68H may store data indicating these events in audit data 74D.

Generally, while certain techniques or functions described herein are performed by certain components (e.g., the EEMS6 or the monitoring device 33), it should be understood that the techniques of this disclosure are not limited in this manner. That is, certain techniques described herein may be performed by one or more of the components of the described system. For example, in some cases, the monitoring device 33 may have a relatively limited set of sensors and/or processing capabilities. In such cases, gateway 28 and/or EEMS6 may be responsible for most or all of processing event data, determining the likelihood of a failure event, and the like. In other examples, monitoring devices 33, communication hub 26, and/or gateway 28 may have additional sensors, additional processing capabilities, and/or additional memory, allowing such devices to perform additional techniques. The determination as to which components are responsible for performing the technique may be based on, for example, processing costs, financial costs, power consumption, and the like.

Fig. 3 is a conceptual diagram of a cable accessory 340 configured to electrically and physically couple two cables 350A and 350B (collectively referred to as cables 350) according to various techniques of this disclosure. Cable accessory 340 may electrically and physically couple cable 350A and cable 350B. Cable accessory 340 may be an example of cable accessory 34 of fig. 1, and cables 350A, 350B may be an example of cable 350 of fig. 1.

In the example of fig. 3, cable 350A includes multiple concentric (e.g., cylindrical) layers, such as a center conductor 352, a conductor shield 354, insulation 356, an insulation shield 358, a shield 360 (also referred to as jacket 360), and a jacket 362. However, in some examples, cable 350 may include more or fewer layers. Cable 350B may include similar multiple layers. It should be understood that the layers of cable 350 are not necessarily drawn to scale. Cable 350 may be configured for AC and/or DC power transmission.

Cable 350 may transmit voltages of 11kV, 33kV, 66kV, 360kV, and so on. In some cases, cable 350, which transmits power between a power source and a substation, may transmit a voltage of 360kV or greater, which may be considered a "transmission grade voltage. In some examples, cable 350 transmits a voltage between 33kV and 360kV, such as 66kV or 33kV, which may be considered a "secondary transmission level voltage," and may provide power from a power source to an end user or customer (e.g., a customer utilizing a relatively large amount of power). As another example, a cable 350 transmitting power between a distribution substation and a distribution transformer may transmit a voltage of less than 33kV, which may be considered a "distribution level voltage". Cable 350 may also transmit power between a distribution substation or distribution transformer (e.g., pad or column transformer) and an end user or consumer (e.g., home and business), and may transmit voltages between 360 and 240 volts, at which cable 350 may be referred to as a "secondary distribution line".

The center conductor 352 comprises a conductive material, such as copper or aluminum. In some examples, the center conductor 352 includes a single solid conductor or a plurality of stranded conductors. The diameter or thickness of the center conductor 352 is based on the current that the cable 350 is designed to carry or conduct. In other words, the cross-section of the center conductor 352 is based on the current that the cable 350 is designed to carry. For example, the center conductor 352 may be configured to carry 1,000 amps or more of current.

The conductor shield 354 may comprise a semiconductive polymer, such as a carbon black loaded polymer. The semiconducting polymer may have a bulk resistivity in the range of about 5 ohm-cm to about 100 ohm-cm. The conductor shield 354 may be physically and electrically coupled to the center conductor 352. In the example of fig. 3, a conductor shield 354 is disposed between the center conductor 352 and the insulator 356. The conductor shield 354 may provide a continuous conductive surface around the outside of the center conductor 352, which may reduce or eliminate sparks that may otherwise be formed by the center conductor 352.

In some examples, the insulation 356 comprises polyethylene, such as cross-linked polyethylene (which may be abbreviated as PEX, XPE, or XLPE) or ethylene propylene rubber (which may be abbreviated as EPR). The diameter or thickness of the insulator 356 is dependent upon the voltage that the cable 350 is designed to carry or conduct.

The insulation shield 358 may include a semiconductive polymer similar to the conductor shield 354. In the example of fig. 3, an insulating shield 358 is disposed between insulator 356 and shield 360. The dielectric shield 358 may be coupled to the dielectric 356. In some examples, the insulating shield 358 is electrically coupled to the guard 360.

The guard 360 may comprise a conductive material, such as a metal foil or film or a wire. In some examples, shield 360 may be referred to as a "ground conductor.

As shown in fig. 3, jacket 362 (also referred to as a "sheath") is the outer layer of cable 350. The jacket 362 may be a plastic or rubber polymer, such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Polyethylene (PE), or Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (EPDM).

Cable 350 may include additional layers, such as swellable or water-blocking materials disposed within the conductor strands (e.g., strand fill) or between various layers within cable 350.

According to aspects of the present disclosure, cable accessory 340 includes a control unit 300 configured to monitor a health state of cable accessory 340, the cable, and/or the electrical device (e.g., a device in proximity to accessory 340). The monitoring device 300 may be an example of the monitoring device 33 of fig. 1. In some examples, the control unit 300 includes at least one processor 302, a communication unit 304, a power source 306, one or more sensors 308, and a storage device 310. Fig. 3 shows an example of a cable accessory 340. Many other examples of cable accessories 340 may be used in other instances and may include a subset of the components included in exemplary cable accessory 340 or may include additional components not shown in exemplary cable accessory 340 in fig. 3.

Cable accessory 340 includes one or more power sources 306 to provide power to the components shown in cable accessory 340. In some examples, the power source 306 includes a primary power source for providing power and a secondary backup power source for providing power when the primary power source is unavailable (e.g., fails or otherwise does not provide power). In some examples, the power source 306 includes a battery, such as a lithium ion battery. As another example, the power source 306 may include a power harvesting device or circuitry configured to harvest power from an external source. Power source 306 may include power harvesting circuitry configured to harvest power from cable 350. For example, when current flows through cable 302, cable 302 generates a magnetic field. The power source 306 may include circuitry that generates a current based on the magnetic field such that the current generated by the power source 306 may provide power to the control unit 300. In some examples, the power source 306 may include a piezoelectric power harvesting device, a thermoelectric power harvesting device, a photovoltaic power harvesting device, or any other power harvesting device.

One or more processors 302 may implement functionality within and/or execute instructions within cable accessory 340. For example, processor 302 may receive and execute instructions stored by storage device 310. These instructions executed by processor 302 may cause cable accessory 340 to store and/or modify information within storage device 310 during program execution. The processor 302 may execute instructions of the component analysis engine 318 to perform one or more operations in accordance with the techniques of this disclosure. That is, the analysis engine 318 is operable by the processor 302 to perform the various functions described herein.

One or more communication units 304 of cable accessory 340 may communicate with external devices by transmitting and/or receiving data. For example, cable accessory 340 may transmit and/or receive radio signals over a radio network, such as a cellular radio network, using communication unit 304. Examples of communication unit 304 include a network interface card (e.g., an ethernet card), an optical transceiver, a radio frequency transceiver, a GPS receiver, or any other type of device that can send and/or receive information. Other examples of communication unit 304 may includeGPS, cellular (e.g., 3G, 4G), LPWAN anda radio component. As another example, the communication unit 304 may communicate with an external device by transmitting and/or receiving data via wired communication.

Communication unit 304 may be configured to transmit and receive data via cable 350 using Power Line Communication (PLC) techniques. The communication unit 304 may implement power line communication through a narrowband frequency (e.g., about 500kHz or lower) or a wideband frequency (e.g., about 1MHz or higher). In contrast to utilizing inductive coupling, which can be expensive, bulky, and challenging to install, communication unit 304 can include capacitive coupling circuitry to inject data into and extract data from cable 350.

The control unit 300 includes one or more sensors 308 configured to generate sensor data indicative of one or more conditions of the cable accessory 340. Examples of sensors 308 include temperature sensors (e.g., located inside and/or outside of the cable accessory), partial discharge sensors, voltage and/or current sensors, and the like. The sensor 308 may be attached on, within, or near the cable accessory 340. In some examples, sensors 308 include one or more temperature sensors, such as an internal temperature sensor for monitoring a temperature inside of cable accessory 340 and/or an external temperature monitor for monitoring a temperature outside or on a surface of cable accessory 34. The sensor 308 may include a partial discharge sensor for detecting a partial discharge within the cable accessory 340. As another example, sensor 308 may include a voltage and/or current sensor configured to measure the phase and/or magnitude of a voltage or current in cable accessory 340.

One or more storage devices 310 may store information for processing by processor 302. In some examples, storage 310 is a temporary memory, meaning that the primary purpose of storage 310 is not long-term storage. The storage device 310 may be configured for short-term storage of information as volatile memory and therefore does not retain stored content if deactivated. Examples of volatile memory include Random Access Memory (RAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), and other forms of volatile memory known in the art.

In some examples, storage 310 may also include one or more computer-readable storage media. Storage 310 may be configured to store larger amounts of information than volatile memory. Storage 310 may also be configured for long-term storage of information as non-volatile storage space and to retain information after an activation/deactivation cycle. Examples of non-volatile memory include flash memory or forms of electrically programmable memory (EPROM) or electrically erasable programmable memory (EEPROM). Storage 830 may store program instructions and/or data associated with components such as analysis engine 318.

In the example of fig. 3, storage 310 includes an electrical equipment data repository 312, an event data repository 314, a model repository 316, and an analysis engine 318. Data repositories 312, 314, and 316 may include relational databases, multidimensional databases, maps, and hash tables, or any data structure that stores data. In some examples, electrical device data repository 312 may be similar to electrical device data repository 74A of fig. 2 and may contain data similar to the electrical device data repository. Likewise, the event data repository 314 may be similar to the event data 74B as described in FIG. 2 and may contain data similar to the event data.

According to aspects of the present disclosure, the analytics engine 318 is operable by the one or more processors 302 to perform one or more actions based on sensor data generated by the sensors 308. The analysis engine 318 may be similar to the flow analysis engine 68F of FIG. 2 and may include all or a subset of the functionality of the flow analysis engine.

In some examples, analysis engine 318 may determine a health state of cable accessory 340 based at least in part on sensor data generated by one or more of sensors 308. For example, the analytics engine 318 may apply one or more rules (e.g., stored within the model repository 316) to sensor data generated by one or more of the sensors 308 to determine the health of the cable accessory 340. The rules may be pre-programmed or learned, for example, via machine learning. According to some examples, model data store 316 contains rules trained based at least in part on event data collected from a plurality of cable accessories 34 and known fault events. In such examples, analysis engine 318 may train one or more models in model repository 316 based on event data within event data repository 314. As another example, the control unit 300 may receive data representing one or more models from the EESR 6 of fig. 1 and 2, and may store the models in the model repository 316.

Analysis engine 318 may determine the health of cable accessory 340 by predicting whether cable accessory 340 will experience a fault event within a predetermined amount of time based at least in part on the rules and sensor data. For example, the analysis engine 318 may predict whether the cable accessory 340 will fail within a predetermined amount of time by applying one or more models in the model repository 316 to the sensor data. As one example, the analysis engine 318 may apply the models in the model repository 316 to the sensor data stored in the event data repository 314. For example, analysis engine 318 may receive temperature data from a temperature sensor indicative of a temperature within cable accessory 340 and apply the models in model repository 316 to the temperature data. The analysis engine 318 may determine that the temperature is within a normal temperature range based on the temperature data and the model in the model repository 316, such that the analysis engine 318 may determine that the health of the cable accessory 340 is nominal or normal. As another example, the analysis engine 318 may apply the models in the model repository 316 to the temperature data from the temperature sensor 308 and the current data from the current sensor 308. For example, a temperature alone may not indicate a fault of the cable accessory 34, as the temperature may increase as the current increases. However, the temperature and current may indicate a potential cable accessory fault, for example, if the measured temperature is relatively high, even when cable 350 carries a relatively small current. Thus, in some examples, the analysis engine 308 may apply the models in the model repository 316 to the temperature data and the current data to determine the health of the cable accessory 340.

In some examples, analysis engine 318 applies the models in model repository 316 to event data repository 314 and other data, such as data within electrical device data repository 312. For example, analysis engine 318 may apply one or more models in model repository 316 to temperature data of cable accessories 340 stored within event data repository 314 and data indicative of the type of cable accessories 340 stored within electrical device data repository 312 to predict whether cable accessories 340 will experience a fault event (e.g., be unable to conduct power) within a predetermined amount of time.

Analysis engine 318 may perform various actions based on the health status of cable accessory 340. For example, analysis engine 318 may output a notification (e.g., to EEMS 6) that includes data indicative of the health of cable accessory 340. For example, the notification may indicate that cable accessory 340 is operating normally. As another example, analysis engine 318 may output a notification indicating that cable accessory 340 is predicted to fail within a predetermined amount of time or indicating a time at which cable accessory 340 is predicted to fail.

Fig. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary gateway 28 configured to communicate with cable accessory 34A and EEMS6 in accordance with various techniques of the present disclosure. Fig. 4 shows only one particular example of gateway 28. Many other examples of gateway 28 may be used in other instances and may include a subset of the components shown in fig. 4 and/or may include additional components not shown in fig. 4.

As shown in fig. 4, gateway 28 includes one or more processors 402, one or more communication units 404, one or more power supplies 406, and one or more storage devices 410. The processor 402, communication unit 404, power supply 406, and storage component 410 may be similar to, and include functionality similar to, the processor 302, communication unit 304, power supply 306, and storage component 310 of fig. 3. Therefore, the description of the processor 402, the communication unit 404, the power supply 406, and the storage section 410 is omitted for the sake of brevity.

Gateway 28 may receive event data from a plurality of cable accessories 34 of one or more lines 24. The event data received by gateway 28 may include data indicative of sensor data generated by sensors of the respective monitoring devices (e.g., monitoring cable accessories), such as all or a portion of the sensor data, a summary of the sensor data, and/or results of an analysis based on the sensor data. Gateway 28 may store all or a subset of the event data in event data repository 414. In some examples, gateway 28 may receive notifications from one or more cable accessories indicating the health status of the respective cable accessories 34.

Gateway 28 may act as a vehicle between monitoring device 33 and EEMS 6. For example, the gateway 28 may receive a notification from the monitoring device 33 and may send the notification to the EEMS 6. As another example, gateway 28 may receive data from EEMS 6. For example, gateway 28 may receive firmware updates from EEMS6 and may send the firmware updates from EEMS6 to monitoring device 33. In some cases, gateway 28 may receive (e.g., from EEMS6, monitoring device 33, or both) device data, installation data, manufacturing data, etc. for a plurality of cable accessories 34, and may store the device data in electrical device data repository 412.

In some examples, analysis engine 418 determines a health status of a respective one or more electrical equipment articles 20 (e.g., cable accessories 34) based at least in part on event data within event data repository 414. Analysis engine 418 may apply one or more rules to the event data to determine a health status of respective ones of cable accessories 34. The rules may be pre-programmed or learned. The rules may be stored within model repository 416. In some examples, analysis engine 418 may train one or more machine learning models based on event data and known fault events within event data repository 414, and may store the trained models with model repository 416. As another example, gateway 28 may receive the rules from monitoring device 33 or EEMS 6.

The analysis engine 418 may apply rules to the event data to determine a health status of one or more electrical equipment articles 20, such as the cable accessories 34. For example, analysis engine 418 may determine the health of cable accessory 34A by predicting whether cable accessory 34A will fail within a predetermined amount of time or predicting the remaining life of cable accessory 34A.

Gateway 28 may output the data to EEMS 6. In some examples, gateway 28 transmits all or a portion of the event data from monitoring device 33 to EEMS 6. As another example, the gateway 28 may send a notification (e.g., generated by the monitoring device 33 and/or the gateway 28) to the EEMS 6. For example, gateway 28 may output a notification indicating that the remaining life of a particular electrical equipment article (e.g., cable accessory 34A) is less than a threshold amount of time or indicating that the particular electrical equipment article is predicted to fail.

Fig. 5 is an example graphical user interface on computing device 16 of electrical equipment management system 2 in fig. 1, in accordance with the techniques of this disclosure. Fig. 5 is described with reference to the electrical equipment management system 6 as described in fig. 1 and 2.

The EEMS6 may output a graphical user interface 500 representing an environment, such as the environment 8B, that includes a plurality of electrical equipment articles. In the example of fig. 5, the article of electrical equipment shown by graphical user interface 500 is described as a cable accessory, however graphical user interface 500 may also represent a different type of electrical equipment. In the example of fig. 5, graphical user interface 500 includes graphical elements (e.g., icons, symbols, text, or other graphical elements) for each respective cable attachment of a plurality of cable attachments within the environment. For example, graphical user interface 500 includes graphical icons 534A-534C, each graphical icon representing a respective one of cable accessories 34 of FIG. 1.

The graphical user interface 500 may output data indicative of the health status of the respective cable accessory. For example, the graphical user interface 500 may include a legend 502 with different graphical elements representing different health levels. In the example of fig. 5, the graphical elements 534A and 534B indicate that the health status of the cable accessory represented by the respective graphical elements 534A, 534B is "normal". The normal health status may indicate that the respective cable accessory is not predicted to fail for a threshold amount of time or is operating within typical operating parameters (e.g., within an expected temperature range, experiencing a typical amount of partial discharge events, etc.). As shown in the example of fig. 5, graphical element 534C indicates that the health status of the cable accessory (e.g., cable accessory 34C of fig. 1) corresponding to graphical element 534C is not normal. In some examples, graphical element 534C may indicate that cable accessory 34C is predicted to fail within a threshold amount of time.

In some examples, the graphical user interface 500 may include additional data, such as a map indicating the location of one or more cable accessories. For example, the graphical user interface 500 may include graphical elements 536A-536C that indicate a number of customers (e.g., households) serviced by the cable accessory.

Graphical user interface 500 may enable user 18 of computing device 16 to select a graphical element to receive additional information for the graphical element. For example, one or more computing devices 18 may output graphical user interface 500 and may receive user input selecting graphical element 534C. In response to receiving the data indicating the user-selected graphical element 534C, the EEMS6 may output additional information for the corresponding cable accessory to the computing device 18, such as data indicating the date of installation, the location, the type of cable accessory, the number of customers serviced by the cable accessory, and so forth. Additionally, the EEMS6 also enables the user 16 of the computing device 18 to schedule maintenance or replacement of the cable accessory 34C, order parts, rewire power or otherwise adjust operation of the power grid, and the like.

Fig. 6 is a flowchart illustrating exemplary operations performed by one or more computing devices configured to monitor electrical utility equipment according to various techniques of the present disclosure. Fig. 6 is described with reference to the system described in fig. 1 and 2.

One or more computing devices, such as the computing devices of EEMS6 and/or the processors of gateways 28, hubs 26, or monitoring devices 33 may obtain a first set of event data, referred to as training event data, from a plurality of cable accessories 34 (600). For example, training event data may be obtained for training one or more learning models prior to deployment of the models for use within the EEMS6 and/or other devices, such as the gateway 28, hub 26, or monitoring device 33. The training data may, for example, include known (i.e., previously identified, also referred to as "tagged") fault events and associated sensed data. As another example, monitoring devices 33A monitoring cable accessories 34A may receive event data from sensors of respective monitoring devices 33 monitoring cable accessories 34 within monitoring environment 8B to train and refine the model in real-time. In some cases, the sensors of the respective monitoring devices 33 include temperature sensors, voltage sensors, partial discharge sensors, and the like. According to some examples, each of monitoring devices 33 may output training event data to gateway 28, EEMS6, or both. The training event data may include data indicative of sensor data (e.g., all or a subset of the sensor data, analysis results based on the sensor data, a summary of the sensor data, etc.), equipment data, manufacturing data, installation data, customer data, power distribution data, or a combination thereof.

In response to receiving the training event data, the one or more computing devices may train the model based at least in part on the event data from cable accessory 34 (602). For example, the monitoring device 33, the gateway 28, and/or the EEMS6 may utilize machine learning techniques to train a model that receives training event data as input and outputs a predicted health state of one or more electrical equipment items 20, such as the cable 32, the cable accessory 34, or the power substation 22. The one or more computing devices may train one or more models using supervised learning, unsupervised learning, or semi-supervised learning. According to some examples, the one or more computing devices may train one or more models based on known fault events. For example, the EEMS6 may apply a plurality of training event data corresponding to known fault events to generate one or more models for predicting future fault events for a particular cable accessory when the EEMS6 subsequently receives event data for the particular cable accessory. In some examples, EEMS6 may output one or more models to one or more cable accessories 34 or gateway 28. As another example, the monitoring device 33 and/or the gateway 28 may train the model and may output the model to other monitoring devices, the gateway 28, or the EEMS 6.

After training the one or more models, in some examples, the one or more computing devices may receive a second set of event data, referred to as operational event data, from a particular monitoring device, such as monitoring device 33A monitoring cable accessory 34A (604). For example, monitoring device 33A may receive operational event data, including sensor data from sensors of monitoring device 33A. As another example, monitoring device 33A may output the operational event data to another monitoring device, gateway 28, and/or EEMS 6.

The one or more computing devices determine a health state of cable accessory 34A based at least in part on the operational event data (606). In some examples, monitoring device 33A, 33B, or 33C, gateway 28, EEMS6, or a combination thereof may apply one or more models to operational event data from monitoring device 33A to determine the health of cable accessory 34A. For example, monitoring device 33A may determine the health status of cable accessory 34A locally, or EEMS6 may determine the health status of cable accessory 34.

In response to determining the health status of cable accessory 34A, the one or more computing devices perform at least one action (608). In some examples, monitoring device 33A performs the action by outputting a notification to EEMS6 indicating the health status of cable accessory 34A. For example, the notification may include data indicating that cable accessory 34A is predicted to fail within a predetermined amount of time. Similarly, gateway 28 and/or EEMS6 may output a notification indicating the health of cable accessory 34A. As another example, EEMS6 may perform an action by outputting data corresponding to a graphical user interface indicative of the health of cable accessory 34A to one of computing devices 18, such that one of computing devices 18 may display the graphical user interface. As another example, EEMS6 schedules maintenance or replacement of cable accessory 34A.

Fig. 7A-7B are conceptual diagrams illustrating an example cable accessory according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure. Fig. 7A-7B show plan views through the center of a cable accessory 700 that includes a monitoring device 720. The monitoring device may be integrated into the cable accessory or may be part of a separate monitoring device that may be used with conventional cable accessories.

Monitoring device 700 may be an example of cable accessory 34 of fig. 1. In the example of fig. 7A-7B, the cable accessory 700 includes a monitoring device 720 and a plurality of generally concentric layers, such as a connector 702, an insulator 704, a low-side electrode 706, a separator 708, a ground conductor 710. In some examples, insulator 704, low side electrode 706, and separator 708 can be collectively referred to as a joint body 705 and can be generally coaxial with one another. It should be understood that the layers of cable accessory 700 are not necessarily drawn to scale. The cable accessory 700 may include fewer layers or additional layers not shown here.

The connector 702, which in some configurations may be a high side electrode, may include a cylindrical body having a surface at a first end of the cylindrical body and a surface at a second end of the cylindrical body opposite the first end. The cylindrical body may include an outer surface connecting the first and second ends of the cylindrical body. Each end of the cylindrical body may be configured to receive a respective cable (e.g., cable 32 of fig. 1). For example, the first and second ends of the connector 702 may each include an aperture 703 configured to receive a cable (e.g., the center conductor 352 of the cable 32 of fig. 3, or the center conductor 352 and the conductor shield 354 of the cable 32 of fig. 3). The hole 703 may extend the entire length of the connector 702 such that the connector 702 includes a single hole 703 or hollow region traversing from a surface at a first end of the connector 702 to a surface at a second end of the connector 702. In this way, an installer coupling two cables together may insert the center conductor of a first cable into the hole 703 at a first end of the connector 702 and insert the center conductor of a second cable into the hole 703 at a second end of the connector 702 to electrically couple the two cables.

In an alternative embodiment, the high side electrode may be the center conductor of one of the first and second cables connected by the connector 702.

Although the monitoring device is described herein as a cable connector, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the concept of the monitoring device may be extended to other common cable accessories, such as cable terminations, separable connectors, or other cable connection systems.

In this example, the connector 702 comprises a conductive material, such as steel, copper, or aluminum. The diameter or thickness of connector 702 may be based on the current that cable accessory 700 is designed to carry or conduct and/or the gauge of cable 32 that cable accessory 700 is configured to couple or connect. The connector 702 may couple two or more cables 32 to conduct power between the power facility and one or more consumers. In such examples, the connector 702 may conduct power at a line voltage, which may be referred to as a main voltage. In other words, the voltage transmitted by the connector 702 may be equal to the voltage transmitted by the electrical facility or a portion of the voltage transmitted by the electrical facility (e.g., up or down regulated by one or more substations located between the electrical facility and the cable accessory 700).

The insulator 704 may comprise a cylindrical tube made of an insulating material such as an elastomeric rubber (e.g., Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (EPDM)). In some examples, the diameter or thickness of insulator 704 is based on the voltage that cable accessory 700 and/or cable 32 are designed to transmit or conduct.

In some examples, the low side electrode 706 includes a semi-conductive material, such as a carbon-filled polymer (e.g., a cross-linked polyethylene or Ethylene Propylene Rubber (EPR) material) that is matched to the polymer used in the main cable insulation. In some examples, low side electrode 706 can be a conductive film deposited on an outer surface of insulator 704. The low side electrode 706 may be electrically floating with respect to the connector 702 or the ground conductor 710. In other words, in some examples, low side electrode 706 may be electrically isolated from connector 702 and ground conductor 710. In other words, low side electrode 706 may be at a different potential than either of connector 702 and ground conductor 710. For example, when the connector 702 conducts an AC current, the oscillating AC voltage in the connector 702 may generate a magnetic field, which in turn may induce an AC current and voltage in the low-side electrode 706.

As shown in fig. 7C and 7D, in some examples, the low side electrode 706 may include multiple sub-layers or regions, such as a low resistance region 707A and a relatively high resistance region 707B. In some examples, the low-resistance region 707A is disposed between the high-resistance region 707B and the spacer 708. The low-resistance region 707A may include a material having a relatively low resistance compared to the high-resistance region 707B. In the example of fig. 7C, the low-resistance region 707A is a continuous layer, such as a metal foil. In the example of fig. 7D, the low-resistance region 707A is not a continuous layer. For example, as shown in fig. 7D, the low-resistance region 707A may be a metal mesh. In examples where low side electrode 706 includes low resistance region 707A and high resistance region 707B, monitoring device 720 may be electrically connected to low resistance region 707A of low side electrode 706.

The ground conductor 710, which may also be referred to as the conductor at ground 710. The ground conductor 710 may comprise a conductive material, such as copper or aluminum. In some examples, ground conductor 710 may include a wire rope disposed on an exterior of cable accessory 700. During installation of the cable accessory 700 (e.g., when coupling two cables together), the ground conductor 710 may be electrically coupled to the shield 360 of the cables of fig. 3 that are connected by the cable accessory.

In accordance with the techniques of this disclosure, cable accessory 700 includes a separator 708, also referred to as high impedance separator 708, disposed between low side electrode 706 and ground conductor 710. The spacers 708 may comprise an insulating material or a relatively high resistance material that is not a perfect insulator. Separator 708 may electrically isolate low side electrode 706 from ground conductor 710. As described in more detail below, electrically separating the low-side electrode 706 and the ground conductor 710 from the separator 708 may enable the monitoring device 720 to determine the health of the cable accessory 700 (e.g., via sensors that detect partial discharge events or monitor temperature, voltage, and/or current in the low-side electrode 706), draw power from the cable 32, communicate with other computing devices (e.g., EEMS 6) via power line communication, or a combination thereof.

The cable accessory 700 includes a monitoring device 720. Monitoring device 720 is electrically coupled to low side electrode 706 and ground conductor 710. In some examples, monitoring device 720 is physically disposed between low side electrode 706 and ground conductor 710. However, in some examples, the monitoring device 702 may be located elsewhere, such as external to the cable accessory 700.

In alternative embodiments, the monitoring device may be a separate device that may be disposed over the cable accessory 700, adjacent to the cable accessory 700, or near the cable accessory 700. In yet another aspect, the monitoring device can be disposed at a mid-span location between cable connection points such that the monitoring device is connected to the low-side electrode (e.g., a semiconductive layer) and the ground conductor at the mid-span location.

The monitoring device 720 may include one or more processors 722 and at least one other device or circuit 723. Device 723 may include one or more communication units 724, a power supply 725, one or more sensors 728, or a combination thereof. The power supply 725 may include a battery or power harvesting device 726 (also referred to as power harvesting circuitry 726).

As shown in fig. 7A, control circuit 720 may include a single electrical connection with each of low side electrode 706 and ground conductor 710. In some examples, such as the example of fig. 7B, monitoring device 720 may include multiple electrical connections to each of low side electrode 706 and ground conductor 710, such as separate electrical connections to communication unit 724, power harvester 726, and sensor 728. The sensors 728 can include temperature sensors (e.g., located inside and/or outside of the cable accessory), partial discharge sensors, voltage and/or current sensors, and the like. The sensor may be attached on, within, or near the cable accessory 700.

In some examples, multiple devices 723 may utilize low side electrode 706. For example, the devices 723 may utilize the low side electrode 726 by dividing the time each device 723 is coupled to the low side electrode 706, by sampling at different frequencies simultaneously, or a combination thereof. Table 1 shows exemplary frequencies that may be used for various operations or functions of the device 723.

Function(s)	Frequency range
		Power harvesting	50/60Hz
Phase and magnitude measurement of voltage	50/60Hz
		Power line communication	10kHz-500kHz
Partial discharge detection	1kHz to 1GHz

TABLE 1

In some examples, one or more of devices 723 may be continuously coupled to low side electrode 706. In other words, in some examples, at least one of devices 723 utilizes low side electrode 706 such that low side electrode 706 may have a 100% duty cycle. However, in some examples, a lower duty cycle may also be employed (e.g., shared in time, perhaps none of the devices 723 is operating or utilizing the low side electrode 706 at any given time).

In operation, the monitoring device 720 may include the functionality of the monitoring device 33 of fig. 1 and the monitoring device 300 of fig. 3. Monitoring device 720 may determine the health of cable accessory 700. In some examples, the monitoring device 720 determines the health status of the cable accessory 700 based on event data such as sensor data (generated by the sensors 728), device data, manufacturing data, installation data, or a combination thereof. Monitoring device 720 may determine the health of cable accessory 700 by applying one or more models to the event data, for example, to predict whether cable accessory 700 will fail within a predetermined amount of time. In response to determining the health status of the cable accessory 700, the monitoring device 720 may output data indicative of the health status of the cable accessory 700, such as all or a portion of the sensor data, a summary of the sensor data, an analysis based on the sensor data, or a combination thereof. In some examples, monitoring device 720 uses wired communication techniques (e.g., powerline communication) and/or wireless communication techniques (e.g., LTE, etc.),) The data is output to the EEMS6 of fig. 1 to 2. According to some examples, the monitoring device 720 may output the event data without determining the health status of the cable accessory 700. For example, the monitoring device 720 may monitorThe event data is output to gateway 28 and/or EEMS6, and EEMS6 and/or gateway 28 may determine the health of cable accessory 700 based on the event data.

By utilizing low side electrode 706, cable accessory 700 can include a monitoring device 720, the monitoring device 720 including multiple devices (e.g., sensor 728 and communication unit 724) that share low side electrode 706, which can reduce the complexity and cost of cable accessory 700. In this manner, the monitoring device 720 may be relatively easily installed and may provide a relatively efficient, low cost, and simple means for monitoring the cable accessory 700 and communicating with the EEMS 6.

Fig. 8 is a conceptual block diagram illustrating an example monitoring device for a cable accessory according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 8, the monitoring device 720 may include a plurality of devices 723, such as a communication unit 724 and a power harvester 726, that share a low side electrode in a time-slicing scheme. Monitoring device 720 may include a switch operable by one of processors 722. One or more of the processors 722 may electrically disconnect a first device 723 (e.g., the communication unit 724) from the low side electrode 706 and connect a second device 723 (e.g., the power harvester 726). Thus, the monitoring device 720 may include a switch operable by one of the processors 722 so that the low side electrode 706 may be sequentially connected to the various devices 723.

Fig. 9A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to detect a partial discharge event according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure. Fig. 9B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 9A. The monitoring device 720 may include one or more communication units and/or power supplies as shown in fig. 7, which are not shown in fig. 9 for clarity and brevity. In the example of fig. 9, the cable accessory 700 includes a partial discharge sensor 740. In some examples, the partial discharge sensor 740 may detect partial discharge events via Ultra High Frequency (UHF), transient voltage to ground, high frequency Current Transformer (CT), or other means.

According to aspects of the present disclosure, the partial discharge sensor 740 may detect charge generated by a partial discharge event as charge flows from the low side electrode 706 to the ground conductor 710. In some examples, the low side electrode 706 has a high impedance compared to the impedance through the partial discharge sensor 740, such that charge generated by the partial discharge event passes through the partial discharge sensor 740. As another example, the impedance of the alternative path between the partial discharge event and the ground conductor 710 may also be high enough to cause a charge generated by the partial discharge event through the partial discharge sensor 740. Separating the low side electrode 706 and the ground conductor 710 via the spacer 708, and sharing the low side electrode 706 by multiple devices of the monitoring device 720 (e.g., the partial discharge sensor 740 and the communication unit 724 shown in fig. 7) may increase the functionality of the cable accessory 700 while potentially reducing the complexity and cost of the cable accessory 700 and the connection to the cable 32.

In some cases, the partial discharge sensor 740 may count partial discharge events and may output partial discharge data indicating that a discharge event has occurred, data indicating an amount of discharge events detected within a predetermined amount of time (e.g., within the last five minutes), and so on. In some examples, the one or more processors 722 may determine a health state of the cable accessory 700 based at least in part on partial discharge data generated by the partial discharge sensor 740. For example, the one or more processors 722 may apply a model to at least the partial discharge data and output a prediction of whether or when the cable accessory 700 will fail.

The partial discharge event can emit energy over a wide frequency range and can be easily detected at frequencies that do not interfere with the function of the other devices 723 of the monitoring device 720 of the cable accessory 700. Thus, in some examples, partial discharge sensor 740 may share low side electrode 706 with other devices 723 of monitoring device 720 by utilizing a different frequency than other devices 723. In some examples, partial discharge sensor 740 may share low side electrode 706 with device 723 of monitoring device 720 over time. It should be appreciated that the partial discharge sensor 740 may not continuously measure partial discharge events. For example, the partial discharge sensor 740 may utilize the low-side electrode 706 by time sharing or via a duty cycle less than 100%.

Fig. 10A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to measure voltage according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure. Fig. 10B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 10A. The monitoring device 720 may include one or more communication units and/or power supplies as shown in fig. 7, which are not shown in fig. 10 for clarity and brevity. In the example of fig. 10, cable accessory 700 includes a voltage sensor 742 that can be configured to determine the phase and/or magnitude of the voltage in low side electrode 706. As shown in fig. 10A and 10B, the voltage sensor 742 is electrically coupled to the low side electrode 706 and the ground conductor 710 and includes an impedance that bridges the low side electrode 706 to the ground conductor 710 such that the voltage sensor 742 can measure a voltage drop across the impedance.

The voltage sensor 742 may output voltage data indicating whether a voltage is present, a phase of the voltage, and/or a magnitude of the voltage at the low side electrode 706. In some examples, the one or more processors 722 may determine a health state of the cable accessory 700 based at least in part on the voltage data generated by the voltage sensor 742. For example, the one or more processors 722 may apply a model to at least the voltage data generated by the voltage sensors 742 and output a prediction of whether or when the cable accessory 700 will fail.

In some examples, the one or more processors 722 of the monitoring device 720 determine a health state of the cable accessory or predict whether/when the cable accessory 700 will fail based on the voltage data from the voltage sensor 742 and the partial discharge data from the partial discharge sensor 740. For example, processor 722 may apply a model to the voltage data and the partial discharge data to predict when cable accessory 700 will fail or whether it will fail. As another example, the voltage sensor 742 may determine a phase of the voltage and the one or more processors may determine a health state of the cable accessory 700 by performing a phase resolved partial discharge analysis by correlating partial discharge events to the voltage phase. In such examples, the voltage sensor 742 may not be calibrated according to a known voltage. In some cases, the voltage sensor 742 may output voltage data that indicates whether a voltage is present, such that the voltage sensor 742 may not need to be calibrated.

Fig. 11A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to harvest energy from power transmitted in a cable according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure. Fig. 11B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 11A. The monitoring device 720 may include one or more communication units and/or sensors as shown in fig. 7, which are not shown in fig. 11 for clarity and brevity. In the example of fig. 11, the cable accessory 700 includes a power harvesting device 726, and the power harvesting device 726 may be configured to harvest power transmitted in the cable. For example, power harvester 726 harvests power from a power line as a power output to operate one or more devices 723 of cable accessory 700, such as processor 722 or communication unit 724 shown in fig. 7. In some examples, the power harvester 726 may capacitively harvest power from a power line (e.g., power line 24A of fig. 1) to provide current to the monitoring device 720, which may provide a more stable power source without the use of batteries (which would need to be replaced periodically) or the use of inductive couplers (which would be relatively larger and also more expensive). FIG. 11B illustrates an exemplary circuit implementation of the cable accessory 700 including a power harvester 726. In some examples, the charging current between the connector (e.g., high side electrode) 702 and the ground conductor 710 may be represented by the following equation: I-V ω C, where ω is angular frequency (e.g., 2 × pi frequency), C is capacitance, and V is voltage. In the example where the voltage V on the transmission line is 7,000 volts and the capacitance C between the connector 702 and the low side electrode 706 is 75pF, the charging current that can be drawn from the connector 702 to the ground conductor 712 is, in this example, (7000V) ((2 x pi) × 60Hz) ((75 pF) ═ 0.2 mA). In some examples, a charging current of 0.2mA may be sufficient to drive functions of monitoring device 720 of cable accessory 700, such as sensing functions, processing functions, and communication functions.

FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary circuit of an exemplary power harvesting device 726. In the example of fig. 12, the power harvesting device 726 includes an inverted buck-boost topology implemented between the low side electrode 706 and the ground conductor 710. The AC current flowing through the low side electrode 706 flows to the rectifier 750. Rectifier 750 converts the current into an output DC current that charges capacitor 752. The comparator 754 compares the voltage at the capacitor 752 to a first threshold voltage. When the voltage at the capacitor 752 satisfies (e.g., is greater than or equal to) the threshold voltage, the comparator 754 closes the switch 756, thereby discharging the capacitor 752 into the coil 758. The coil 758 charges the storage capacitor 760 until a second threshold voltage is reached. When the voltage in the storage capacitor 760 meets the second threshold voltage, the switch 756 reopens to recharge the capacitor 752. The current may flow from the storage capacitor 760 to one or more processors 722 or other components of the monitoring device 720, such as one or more communication units 724 (shown in fig. 7) of the cable accessory 700, one or more sensors 728 (shown in fig. 7), and other components of the monitoring device 720.

Fig. 13A is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example cable accessory configured to transmit data via a cable according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure. Fig. 13B is an exemplary circuit diagram of the exemplary cable accessory of fig. 13A. The monitoring device 720 may include one or more sensors and/or power sources as shown in fig. 7, which are not shown in fig. 13 for clarity and brevity. In the example of fig. 13, cable accessory 700 includes a communication unit 724 that can be configured to send and receive data over a cable. In other words, the communication unit 724 may transmit and receive data through the power line 24 of fig. 1 using the power line communication technique. The communication unit 724 may implement power line communication through a narrowband frequency (e.g., about 500kHz or lower) or a wideband frequency (e.g., about 1MHz or higher). For example, the communication unit 724 may output data indicative of the health status of the cable accessory 700 (e.g., to the EEMS 6).

Communication unit 724 is electrically coupled to low side electrode 706 and ground conductor 710 to perform power line communication. As shown in the example of fig. 13B, communication unit 724 may utilize capacitive coupling to inject data into connector 702 and the center conductor of the power cable of fig. 1 (e.g., cable 32 of power line 24) and extract data from connector 702 and the center conductor of the power cable. For example, communication unit 724 may output or transmit data by modulating signals between low side electrode 706 and ground conductor 710. The communication unit 724 may be relatively simple and low cost to install compared to utilizing inductive coupling, which is costly, bulky, and challenging to install. Further, the communication unit 724 may share the low side electrode 706 with other devices 723 of the monitoring device 720 (e.g., as shown in fig. 7), which may reduce the complexity and cost of the cable accessory 700.

Fig. 14 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an exemplary cable accessory 800 electrically and physically coupling cable 832A to cable 832B. The cable accessory 800 may be an example of the cable accessory 700 of fig. 7-11. Cables 832A and 832B (collectively cables 832) may be examples of cables 32 described with reference to fig. 1-3. It should be understood that the layers of cable 832 and the layers of cable accessory 800 are not necessarily drawn to scale.

In the example of fig. 14, cable 832 includes multiple concentric layers, such as cable center conductor 852, cable insulation 856, cable insulation shield 858, cable shield 860 (also referred to as sheath 860), and cable jacket 862. However, in some examples, cable 832 may include more or fewer layers. Cable 832B may include similar multiple layers. Cable center conductor 852, cable insulator 856, cable insulation shield 858, cable guard 860, and cable jacket 862 may correspond to center conductor 352, insulator 356, insulation shield 358, guard 360, and jacket 362, respectively, of fig. 3, such that a description of the respective layers is omitted here for the sake of brevity.

As shown in fig. 14, in some examples, cable accessory 800 includes a monitoring device 820 and a plurality of generally concentric layers, such as connector 802, insulator 804, low side electrode 806, separator 808, ground conductor 810, and jacket 812. Cable accessory 800 may include additional or fewer layers. Connector 802, insulator 804, low side electrode 806, spacer 808, ground conductor 810 may correspond to connector 702, insulator 704, low side electrode 706, spacer 708, ground conductor 710 of fig. 7, respectively, such that a description of the respective layers is omitted for the sake of brevity. The jacket 812 may be a plastic or rubber polymer, such as polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene.

The insulator 804 may include multiple sub-layers, such as a "high-K" insulator 814 and a tab insulator 816. The high-K insulator 814 may include a material having a relatively high dielectric constant compared to the material of the tab insulator 816. In some examples, the cable accessory 800 includes a tab electrode 809 that concentrically covers the connector 802. For example, the tab electrode 809 can comprise a conductive material disposed between the connector 802 and the insulator 804.

The cable accessory 800 may include an extruded cable connector body 805 (e.g., a "push-on" connector body). In some cases, joint body 805 is an integrated unit that includes joint electrode 809, insulator 804, low side electrode 806, and separator 808 in the integrated unit. In other words, according to some examples, the tab electrode 809, the insulator 804, the low side electrode 806, and the separator 808 can form a single cohesive structure or device that can be attached or mounted together with other layers to form the cable accessory 800. The connector body 805 may include an integrated monitoring device 820.

When installed, cable accessory 800 electrically and physically couples cables 832A and 832B. In the example of fig. 14, connector 802 electrically couples center conductors 852 of cables 832A and 832B. As shown in fig. 14, ground conductor 810 electrically couples cable guard 860 of cable 832A with cable guard 860 of cable 832B. The low side electrode 806 may be electrically isolated from the connector 802 and the ground conductor 810. In other words, during operation, the center conductor 852 and the connector 802 may be at a high potential (e.g., thousands or hundreds of thousands of volts), the potentials of the cable guard 860 and the ground conductor 810 may be at a ground potential, and the low-side electrode 806 may float between the ground potential and the high voltage potential. Monitoring device 820 is electrically coupled to ground conductor 810 and low side electrode 806 via electrical connections 818A, 818B, respectively (collectively electrical connections 818).

In operation, the monitoring device 820 may include the functionality of the monitoring device 720 of fig. 7-13. In some examples, the monitoring device 820 includes one or more processors, one or more sensors, one or more communication units, one or more power harvesting devices, or a combination thereof. For example, monitoring device 820 may include one or more sensors configured to generate sensor data indicative of the health of cable accessory 800. Monitoring device 820 can determine of cable accessory 800 based at least in part on sensor dataA healthy state. In some examples, the monitoring device 820 determines the health of the cable accessory 800 based on event data, such as sensor data, device data, manufacturing data, installation data, or a combination thereof. The monitoring device 820 may determine the health of the cable accessory 800 by applying one or more models to the event data, for example, to predict whether the cable accessory 800 will fail within a predetermined amount of time. In response to determining the health status of the cable accessory 800, the monitoring device 820 may output data indicative of the health status of the cable accessory 800, such as all or a portion of the sensor data, a summary of the sensor data, an analysis based on the sensor data, or a combination thereof. In some examples, monitoring device 820 uses wired communication techniques (e.g., powerline communication) and/or wireless communication techniques (e.g., LTE, etc.),) The data is output to the EEMS6 of fig. 1 to 2. According to some examples, the monitoring device 820 may output event data without determining the health of the cable accessory 800. For example, the monitoring device 820 may output event data to the gateway 28 and/or the EEMS6, and the EEMS6 and/or the gateway 28 may determine the health of the cable accessory 800 based on the event data.

Fig. 15 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an exemplary cable accessory 900 electrically and physically coupling a cable 932A to a cable 932B. The cable accessory 900 may be an example of the cable accessory 700 of fig. 7-11. Cables 932A and 932B (collectively cables 932) may be examples of cables 32 described with reference to fig. 1-3. It should be understood that the layers of cable 932 and the layers of cable accessory 900 are not necessarily drawn to scale.

In the example of fig. 15, cable 932 includes multiple concentric layers, such as cable center conductor 952, cable insulation 956, cable insulation shield 958, cable shield 960 (also referred to as sheath 960), and cable jacket 962. However, in some examples, the cable 932 may include more or fewer layers. Cable 932B may include similar multiple layers. Cable center conductor 952, cable insulator 956, cable insulation shield 958, cable shield 960, and cable jacket 962 may correspond to center conductor 352, insulator 356, insulation shield 358, shield 360, and jacket 362, respectively, of fig. 3, such that a description of the respective layers is omitted herein for the sake of brevity.

As shown in fig. 15, in some examples, cable accessory 900 includes a monitoring device 920 and a plurality of layers (e.g., substantially concentric or substantially coaxial layers), such as a connector 902, an insulator 904, a low side electrode 906, a separator 908, a ground conductor 910, and a jacket 912. Cable accessory 900 may include additional or fewer layers. The connector 902, insulator 904, low side electrode 906, spacer 908, ground conductor 910 may correspond to the connector 702, insulator 704, low side electrode 706, spacer 708, ground conductor 710 of fig. 7, respectively, such that a description of the respective layers is omitted for the sake of brevity. Boot 912 may be a plastic or rubber polymer, such as polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene.

The cable accessory 900 may include a molded cable connector body 905. In some cases, joint body 905 is an integrated unit that includes joint electrode 909, insulator 904, low side electrode 906, and separator 908 in the integrated unit. In other words, according to some examples, the tab electrode 909, the insulator 904, the low side electrode 906, and the separator 908 can form a single cohesive structure or device that can be attached or mounted together with other layers to form the cable accessory 900. The connector body 905 may include an integrated monitoring device 920.

In some examples, the cable accessory 900 includes a tab electrode 909 concentrically covering the connector 902. For example, the tab electrode 909 may comprise a conductive material disposed between the connector 902 and the insulator 904.

When installed, cable accessory 900 electrically and physically couples cables 932A and 932B. In the example of fig. 15, connector 902 electrically couples center conductors 952 of cables 932A and 932B. As shown in fig. 15, ground conductor 910 electrically couples cable guard 960 of cable 932A with guard 960 of cable 932B. The low side electrode 906 may be electrically isolated from the connector 902 and the ground conductor 910. In other words, during operation, center conductor 952 and connector 902 may be at a high potential (e.g., thousands or hundreds of thousands of volts), the potential of cable guard 960 and ground conductor 910 may be at ground potential, and electrode 906 may float between ground potential and the high voltage potential. Monitoring device 920 is electrically coupled to ground conductor 910 and low side electrode 906 via electrical connections 918A, 918B, respectively (collectively electrical connections 918).

In operation, the monitoring device 920 may include the functionality of the monitoring device 720 of fig. 7-13. In some examples, the monitoring device 920 includes one or more processors, one or more sensors, one or more communication units, one or more power harvesting devices, or a combination thereof. For example, the monitoring device 920 may include one or more sensors configured to generate sensor data indicative of the health of the cable accessory 900. The monitoring device 920 may determine a health state of the cable accessory 900 based at least in part on the sensor data. In some examples, the monitoring device 920 determines the health status of the cable accessory 900 based on event data, such as sensor data, device data, manufacturing data, installation data, or a combination thereof. The monitoring device 920 may determine the health of the cable accessory 900 by applying one or more models to the event data, for example, to predict whether the cable accessory 900 will fail within a predetermined amount of time. In response to determining the health status of the cable accessory 900, the monitoring device 920 may output data indicative of the health status of the cable accessory 900, such as all or a portion of the sensor data, a summary of the sensor data, an analysis based on the sensor data, or a combination thereof. In some examples, monitoring device 920 uses wired communication techniques (e.g., powerline communication) and/or wireless communication techniques (e.g., LTE, etc.),) The data is output to the EEMS6 of fig. 1 to 2. According to some examples, the monitoring device 920 may output event data without determining the health status of the cable accessory 900. For example, monitoring device 920 may output event data to gateway 28 and/or EEMS6, and EEMS6 and/or gateway 28 may determine a health status of cable accessory 900 based on the event data.

Fig. 16A-16B are conceptual diagrams illustrating an example cable accessory 1000 coupling a cable 1032 to a cable termination lug 1080 according to one or more aspects of the present disclosure. The cable accessory 1000 may be an example of the cable accessory 34F of fig. 1, such as a cable termination body. The cable 1032 may be an example of the cable 32 described with reference to fig. 1-3. It should be understood that cable 1032 and cable accessory 1000 are not necessarily drawn to scale. The cable termination lugs 1080 may be formed of a conductive material, such as copper or aluminum.

In the example of fig. 16A, the cable 1032 includes multiple concentric layers, such as a cable center conductor 1052, cable insulation 1056, cable insulation shield 1058, cable shield 1060 (also referred to as jacket 1060), and cable jacket 1062. However, in some examples, cable 1032 may include more or fewer layers. The cable center conductor 1052, cable insulation 1056, cable insulation shield 1058, cable guard 1060, and cable jacket 1062 may correspond to the center conductor 352, insulation 356, insulation shield 358, guard 360, and jacket 362, respectively, of fig. 3, such that a description of the respective layers is omitted here for the sake of brevity.

In the example of fig. 16A-16B, the cable accessory 1000 includes a monitoring device 1020, which monitoring device 1020 may correspond to the monitoring device 720 of fig. 7, and may include similar components (e.g., processors, communication units, sensors, and power supplies) and functionality.

In the example of fig. 16A and 16B, the cable accessory 1000 includes multiple layers, such as an insulator 1004 and a jacket 1012. Cable accessory 1000 may include additional or fewer layers. The insulator 1004 may comprise an insulating material, such as an elastomeric rubber (e.g., Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (EPDM)). The jacket 1012 may be a plastic or rubber polymer, such as polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene.

In the example of fig. 16A, the cable accessory 1000 includes a low side electrode 1006, which may be an example of the low side electrode 706 of fig. 7. In such examples, the low side electrode 1006 may be electrically isolated from the cable center connector 1052 and the cable guard 1060 of the cable 1032. In other words, the low side electrode 1006 may be at a different potential than the cable center connector 1052 (which is at a relatively high line voltage) and the cable guard 1060 (which is at ground). Monitoring device 1020 is electrically coupled to ground conductor 1060 and low side electrode 1006 via electrical connections 1018A, 1018B, respectively (collectively electrical connections 1018).

In the example of fig. 16B, the cable 1032 includes a low side electrode 1068 (e.g., in addition to or as an alternative to the low side electrode 1006 of the cable accessory 1000) and a separator 1068. Low side electrode 1068 may be similar to low side electrode 706 of fig. 7. The separator 1068 can electrically isolate the low side electrode 1006 from the cable insulation shield 1058 and the cable guard 1060 of the cable 1032.

In operation, the monitoring device 1020 may include the functionality of the monitoring device 720 of fig. 7-13. In some examples, the monitoring device 1020 includes one or more processors, one or more sensors, one or more communication units, one or more power harvesting devices, or a combination thereof. For example, the monitoring device 1020 may include one or more sensors configured to generate sensor data indicative of the health of the cable accessory 1000. The monitoring device 1020 may determine a health state of the cable accessory 1000 based at least in part on the sensor data. In some examples, the monitoring device 1020 determines the health of the cable accessory 1000 based on event data, such as sensor data, device data, manufacturing data, installation data, or a combination thereof. The monitoring device 1020 may determine the health of the cable accessory 1000 by applying one or more models to the event data, for example, to predict whether the cable accessory 1000 will fail within a predetermined amount of time. In response to determining the health status of the cable accessory 1000, the monitoring device 1020 may output data indicative of the health status of the cable accessory 1000, such as all or a portion of the sensor data, a summary of the sensor data, an analysis based on the sensor data, or a combination thereof. In some examples, monitoring device 1020 uses wired communication techniques (e.g., power line communication) and/or wireless communication techniques (e.g., LTE, etc.),) The data is output to the EEMS6 of fig. 1 to 2. According to some examples, monitoring device 1020 may output event data withoutThe health of the cable accessory 1000 is determined. For example, monitoring device 1020 may output event data to gateway 28 and/or EEMS6, and EEMS6 and/or gateway 28 may determine a health status of cable accessory 1000 based on the event data.

In the detailed description of the preferred embodiments, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that show, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. The illustrated embodiments are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all embodiments according to the invention. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims.

Unless otherwise indicated, all numbers expressing feature sizes, amounts, and physical characteristics used in the specification and claims are to be understood as being modified in all instances by the term "about". Accordingly, unless indicated to the contrary, the numerical parameters set forth in the foregoing specification and attached claims are approximations that can vary depending upon the desired properties sought to be obtained by those skilled in the art utilizing the teachings disclosed herein.

As used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms "a", "an", and "the" encompass embodiments having plural referents, unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. As used in this specification and the appended claims, the term "or" is generally employed in its sense including "and/or" unless the content clearly dictates otherwise.

Spatially relative terms, including but not limited to "proximal," "distal," "lower," "upper," "lower," "below," "under," "over," and "on top of" are used herein to facilitate describing the spatial relationship of one or more elements relative to another element. Such spatially relative terms encompass different orientations of the device in use or operation in addition to the particular orientation depicted in the figures and described herein. For example, if the objects depicted in the figures are turned over or flipped over, portions previously described as below or beneath other elements would then be on top of or above those other elements.

As used herein, an element, component, or layer, for example, when described as forming a "coherent interface" with, or being "on," "connected to," "coupled with," "stacked on" or "in contact with" another element, component, or layer, may be directly on, connected directly to, coupled directly with, stacked on, or in contact with, or, for example, an intervening element, component, or layer may be on, connected to, coupled to, or in contact with a particular element, component, or layer. For example, when an element, component or layer is referred to as being, for example, "directly on," directly connected to, "directly coupled with" or "directly in contact with" another element, there are no intervening elements, components or layers present. The techniques of this disclosure may be implemented in a variety of computer devices, such as servers, laptop computers, desktop computers, notebook computers, tablet computers, handheld computers, smart phones, and the like. Any components, modules or units are described to emphasize functional aspects and do not necessarily require realization by different hardware units. The techniques described herein may also be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. Any features described as modules, units or components may be implemented together in an integrated logic device or separately as discrete but cooperative logic devices. In some cases, various features may be implemented as an integrated circuit device, such as an integrated circuit chip or chipset. Additionally, although a variety of different modules are described throughout this specification, many of which perform unique functions, all of the functions of all of the modules may be combined into a single module or further split into other additional modules. The modules described herein are exemplary only, and are so described for easier understanding.

If implemented in software, the techniques may be realized at least in part by a computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed in a processor, perform one or more of the methods described above. The computer readable medium may comprise a tangible computer readable storage medium and may form part of a computer program product, which may include packaging materials. The computer-readable storage medium may include Random Access Memory (RAM) such as Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), FLASH (FLASH) memory, magnetic or optical data storage media, and the like. The computer-readable storage medium may also include non-volatile storage such as a hard disk, magnetic tape, Compact Disc (CD), Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), blu-ray disc, holographic data storage medium, or other non-volatile storage.

The term "processor," as used herein, may refer to any of the foregoing structure or any other structure suitable for implementation of the techniques described herein. Further, in some aspects, the functionality described herein may be provided within dedicated software modules or hardware modules configured to perform the techniques of this disclosure. Even if implemented in software, the techniques may use hardware, such as a processor, for executing the software and memory for storing the software. In any such case, the computer described herein may define a specific machine capable of performing the specific functions described herein. In addition, the techniques may be fully implemented in one or more circuits or logic elements, which may also be considered a processor.

In one or more examples, the functions described may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. If implemented in software, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium and executed by a hardware-based processing unit. The computer readable medium may comprise a computer readable storage medium, which corresponds to a tangible medium, such as a data storage medium, or a communication medium, which includes any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another, such as according to a communication protocol. In this manner, the computer-readable medium may generally correspond to (1) a non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium or (2) a communication medium, such as a signal or carrier wave, for example. A data storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by one or more computers or one or more processors to retrieve instructions, code and/or data structures for implementing the techniques described in this disclosure. The computer program product may include a computer-readable medium.

By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable storage media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, flash memory, or any other medium that can be used to store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer. Also, any connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. For example, if instructions are transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave, then the coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are included in the definition of medium. It should be understood, however, that computer-readable storage media and data storage media do not include connections, carrier waves, signals, or other transitory media, but are instead directed to non-transitory, tangible storage media. Disk and disc, including Compact Disc (CD), laser disc, optical disc, Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), floppy disk and blu-ray disc where disks usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce data optically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

The instructions may be executed by one or more processors, such as one or more Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), general purpose microprocessors, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), field programmable logic arrays (FPGAs), or other equivalent integrated or discrete logic circuitry. Thus, the term "processor" as used may refer to any of the foregoing structure or any other structure suitable for implementing the described techniques. Further, in some aspects, the described functionality may be provided within dedicated hardware and/or software modules. Furthermore, the techniques may be implemented entirely in one or more circuits or logic units.

The techniques of this disclosure may be implemented in a wide variety of devices or apparatuses including a wireless handset, an Integrated Circuit (IC), or a set of ICs (e.g., a chipset). Various components, modules, or units are described in this disclosure to emphasize functional aspects of devices configured to perform the disclosed techniques, but do not necessarily require implementation by different hardware units. Rather, as noted above, various combinations of elements may be combined in hardware elements or provided by a collection of interoperative hardware elements including one or more processors as noted above, in conjunction with suitable software and/or firmware.

It will be recognized that, according to an example, some acts or events in any of the methodologies described herein can be performed in a different order, added, combined, or omitted altogether (e.g., not all described acts or events are necessary for the practice of the methodology). Further, in some examples, acts or events may be performed concurrently, e.g., through multi-threaded processing, interrupt processing, or multiple processors, rather than sequentially.

In some examples, the computer-readable storage medium includes a non-transitory medium. In some examples, the term "non-transitory" indicates that the storage medium is not embodied in a carrier wave or propagated signal. In some examples, a non-transitory storage medium stores data that may change over time (e.g., in RAM or cache).

Various examples have been described. These and other examples are within the scope of the following claims.