In order to improve efficiency and reliability of the world's power grids, sensors are being deployed for constant status monitoring. Placing inexpensive wireless sensors on high-voltage power lines presents a new challenge to the RF engineer. Large electric field intensities can exist around a wireless sensor antenna on a high-voltage power line, leading to the formation of a corona plasma. A corona plasma is a partially ionized volume of air formed through energetic electron-molecule collisions mediated by a strong electric field. This corona can contain large densities of free electrons which act as a conducting medium, absorbing RF energy and detuning the sensor's antenna. Through the use of low-profile antennas and rounded geometries, the possibility for corona formation on the antenna surface is greatly reduced, as compared with wire antennas. This study looks at the effects of a corona plasma on a patch antenna, which could be used in a power line sensor. The corona's behavior in the presence of an electromagnetic plane wave is analyzed mathematically to understand the dependence of attenuation on frequency and electron density. A Drude model is used to convert plasma parameters such as electron density and collision frequency to a complex permittivity that can be incorporated in antenna simulations. Using CST Microwave Studio, a 5.8 GHz patch antenna is simulated with a plasma material on its surface, of varying densities and thicknesses. Power absorption by the plasma dominates the power loss, as opposed to detuning. A wideband patch is simulated to show that the detuning effects by the plasma can be further reduced. Power absorption by the plasma is significant for electron densities greater than 10¹⁸ m⁻³. However, small point corona are found to have little effect on antenna radiation.

Over the last several decades, electricity consumption and generation have continually grown. Investment in the Transmission and Distribution (T&D) infrastructure has been minimal and it has become increasingly difficult and expensive to permit and build new power lines. At the same time, a growing increase in the penetration of renewable energy resources is causing an unprecedented level of dynamics on the grid. Consequently, the power grid is congested and under stress. To compound the situation, the utilities do not possess detailed information on the status and operating margins on their assets in order to use them optimally. The task of monitoring asset status and optimizing asset utilization for the electric power industry seems particularly challenging, given millions of assets and hundreds of thousands of miles of power lines distributed geographically over millions of square miles. The lack of situational awareness compromises system reliability, and raises the possibility of power outages and even cascading blackouts. To address this problem, a conceptual Power Line Sensor Network (PLSN) is proposed in this research. The main objective of this research is to develop a distributed PLSN to provide continuous on-line monitoring of the geographically dispersed power grid by using hundreds of thousands of low-cost, autonomous, smart, and communication-enabled Power Line Sensor (PLS) modules thus to improve the utilization and reliability of the existing power system. The proposed PLSN specifically targets the use of passive sensing techniques, focusing on monitoring the real-time dynamic capacity of a specific span of a power line under present weather conditions by using computational intelligence technologies. An ancillary function is to detect the presence of incipient failures along overhead power lines via monitoring and characterizing the electromagnetic fields around overhead conductors. This research integrates detailed modeling of the power lines and the physical manifestations of the parameters being sensed, with pattern recognition technologies. Key issues of this research also include design of a prototype PLS module with integrated sensing, power and communication functions, and validation of the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology integrated to this proposed PLSN.