Panoramic visualization of thermal faults in power transformer based on data mapping technology

For the thermal monitoring of power transformers, contactless infrared technology has advantages of high resolution and fast responding time, and it does not disturb the original thermal profile across the transformer. However, the thermal faults detected by infrared technology can only be visualized on 2-D projection of the region of interest. The precise spatial localization of the thermal faults cannot be evaluated. In this paper, an improved Augmented Reality technology for panoramic visualization of thermal faults in power transformer is presented. Refined power transformer model is made by using 3-D scanning and reconstruction technology. Infrared images for the apparent temperature measurements of power transformers from different point of views and scales are collected, and the temperature matrix for each image are obtained by using a self-developed data extraction algorithm. Further, 2-D to 3-D geometry transformation are applied to do the mapping of temperature data on the meshing of the refined transformer model. Eventually, the thermal profile across the surface of transformer is holographically displayed, and the precise localization of thermal faults on the transformer can be carried out in 3-D space. Research in this paper makes contribution to smarter and efficient condition monitoring of power transformers.