Improving Circuit Breaker Maintenance Management Tasks by Applying Mobile Agent Software Technology
Abstract-
Circuit breakers are crucial components for powersystem operation. The currently adapted time-directedmaintenance strategy and the emerging new condition-basedstrategy require a flexible information processing technique andsoftware architecture. In this paper, mobile agent software hasbeen applied in implementing circuit breaker maintenance andrepair tasks. Several potential application scenarios have beendescribed and the relevant software features have been discussed.The benefits of using the mobile agent techniques are discussed atthe end.
Index Terms-- Circuit breaker, maintenance, monitoring, mobileagent, power systems, substations, distributed processing
I. INTRODUCTION
CIRCUIT breakers play a crucial role in switching for thereasons of both the routine network operation andprotection of other devices in power systems. To ensurecircuit breakers are in healthy condition, periodical inspectionand preventive maintenance are typically performed. Themaintenance schedules and routines usually follow therecommendation of circuit breaker vendors, although therecommended schedules may be conservative.New maintenance techniques and methodologies areemerging, while the circuit breakers keep improving in theirdesigns and functions [1][2][3]. As an example, some newcircuit breakers have embedded monitoring instrumentsavailable to measure the coil current profiles and the operationtiming [4]. The recorded information can be used to monitorthe condition of breakers during each operation. In this case, itmay be more appropriate to replace the time-directedmaintenance by condition-directed maintenance practice [5].When applied properly, both the size of the maintenance crewand maintenance cost may be reduced greatly with thisapproach. Since the number of circuit breakers in a powersystem is usually very big, a small maintenance cost savingper each circuit breaker can accumulate to a considerablebenefit for the whole system. A more systematic solution isReliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)[6][7], which can be used to select the most appropriate maintenance strategy.During the maintenance or repair work, the maintenancecrew will need to access information distributed across theutility and stored using different data formats. By equippingthe crew with new information access methods to replace theold paper-based information exchange and logging method,the efficiency may be improved since less time will be spenton preparation, reporting and logging. An information accessmethod that is capable of handling heterogeneous informationsources will be helpful to achieve the above goal. Also, thenew information access method should be secure and able towork on unreliable public networks.The mobile agent software provides a flexible frameworkfor mobile agent applications [8][9]. An agent applicationprogram can travel through the internet/intranet to thecomputers where the mobile agent server or transporter isrunning. The mobile agent software also supports DistributedEvents, Agent Collaboration and Service Bridge. Comparedwith client server systems, an agent can process the datalocally and thus reduce the network traffic. Besides, the Javaplatform encapsulates the network layer from the agent, whichmakes the programming easier. The mobile agent softwaremay fit very well in the circuit breaker maintenance scenario.In this paper, we considered how mobile agent softwaremight be applied in circuit breaker maintenance andmonitoring from the viewpoint of the maintenance crew.Section II discusses several problems in circuit breakermaintenance, followed by Section III where a briefintroduction to the mobile agent software is given. Severalapplication scenarios implemented with the mobile agentplatform are discussed in Section IV. Conclusions are given atthe end.
II. CIRCUIT BREAKERMAINTENANCE TASKS
The circuit breakers consist of the interrupter assembly(contacts, arc interrupters and arc chutes), operatingmechanism, operation rod, control panel, sealing system, andbreaking medium (SF6, oil, vacuum and air). To ensure theperformance of a circuit breaker, all the components should bekept in good condition, therefore time-directed preventivemaintenance has been widely adopted.

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