Abstract
This paper presents the design and development of a distributed measurement system for measuring pressure in high voltage circuit breakers (HV CB) and other switching apparatuses, during no-load operations. Instead of using traditional pressure transducers which require significant installation space, additional data acquisition cards and often demand for complex wiring, an in-house solution of pressure measurement is proposed. The system consists of miniature sensors, accompanied with a suitable amplifier, microcontroller unit and communication module, which may be distributed inside the interrupter unit in convenient locations. Due to the fact that the measurement values are transmitted digitally, measurement noise is significantly reduced while the wiring of the system is additionally simplified. The proposed measurement system is tested using two different interrupters (HV CB and a load break switch). The experimental results have demonstrated that the developed system is applicable, accurate, cost-effective, flexible and simple to use.