Dissertation submitted in compliance with the requirements for Master's Degree in Technology: Electrical Engineering (Light Current), Durban Institute of Technology, 2002. / Modern society as a whole seems destined to have an ever-increasing demand for power for both industrial and domestic use, as continued population growth means that cities, suburbs and industrial areas become larger and denser. At the same time the trend toward increased productivity in all segments of industry is influencing the development and techniques employed at locating faults in power cables and networks to ensure only limited downtime and reduced direct and indirect costs associated with the location of faults / M

Thesis (MScEng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis describes the development of a GPS Based Time Stamping and Scheduling System for power system applications. These applications include Wide Area Measurements (WAMs) of electrical power system quantities and high-voltage transmission line fault location. The developed system employs a microcontrolIer and a GPS receiver to synchronise an onboard microsecond-accurate clock to a global time standard. The system is therefore able to provide an accurate GPS-synchronised time stamp of a received trigger signal for use in highvoltage transmission line fault location. The system is also able to generate a trigger signal at a pre-programmed time for initiation of data acquisition runs on electrical power systems. The system was constructed and tested in a laboratory environment. Although the system is designed to operate in stand-alone mode, a host computer software program was also developed for system control and data downloading. The software program was used to time stamp a number of trigger signals and data was downloaded to a host computer. Trigger signals were also generated at predefined times. The acquired data was validated and presented. In conclusion, the low system cost, relative to existing commercial systems, accuracy and programmability of the developed system makes it suitable for a wide variety of time-critical data acquisition applications. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis beskryf die ontwikkeling van 'n GPS gebaseerde tyd stempel en skedulerings sisteem met die oog op kragstelsel toepassings. Ingesluit by hierdie toepassings is wye area metings op elektriese kragstelsels, asook foutopsporing op hoogspanning transmissielyne. Die ontwikkelde sisteem gebruik 'n mikrobeheerder en 'n GPS ontvanger om 'n aanboord mikrosekonde-akkurate horlosie te sinkroniseer met 'n internasionale tyd standaard. Dus kan die ontwikkelde sisteem 'n akkurate GPS gesinkroniseerde tyd stempel aan 'n snellersein heg. Hierdie tyd stempel kan gebruik word in hoogspanning transmissielyn foutopsporing. Die sisteem kan ook 'n snellersein genereer op 'n vooraf geprogrammeerde tyd. Hierdie snellersein kan gebruik word om belangrike data van elektriese kragstelsels te versamel, deur gebruik te maak van bestaande dataversamelingstelsels. Die sisteem was ontwerp en getoets in laboratorium toestande. Alhoewel die stelselontwerp is om alleenstaande te funksioneer, is 'n beheer rekenaar gebruik om, met die hulp van ontwikkelde sagteware, die sisteem te beheer en data af te laai. 'n Tyd stempel is aan 'n aantal snellerseine geheg en hierdie data is afgelaai na 'n beheer rekenaar. Die sisteem is ook geprogrammeer om 'n aantal snellerseine te genereer op vooraf gedefinieerde tye. Die data wat uit hierdie toetse versamel is, is bespreek. In vergelyking met bestaande kommersiële stelsels is die ontwikkelde stelsel se lae koste, akkuraatheid en programmeerbaarheid eienskappe wat die stelsel geskik maak vir 'n wye verskeidenheid van tyd-kritieke dataversameling toepassings.