Affiliations: Electrical Engineering Department, Engineering School
of São Carlos, University of São Paulo, Av. Trabalhador
São-Carlense, 400, 13566-590, São Carlos, SP, Brazil. E-mail:
{rmacedo, donato, coury, adriano}@sel.eesc.sc.usp.br | Computer Science Departament, Institute of Mathematics
and Computer Science, P.O. Box 668,13560-970 São Carlos, SP, Brazil.
E-mail: andre@icmc.usp.br
Abstract: The presence of voltage and current waveform distortion is generally
expressed in terms of harmonic frequencies. These distortions are not
appreciated because they are responsible for equipment misoperation and damage.
The potential harmonic effects on power equipment and system operation have
become a concern for utilities. As a consequence, harmonics can no longer be
ignored in industrial power. Therefore, precise harmonic identification is a
very important task in order to eliminate these undesirable effects. This paper
presents a novel approach to identifying harmonics in power system distorted
waveforms. The proposed method is based on Genetic Algorithms, which is an
optimization technique inspired by genetics and natural evolution. GOOAL, a
specially designed intelligent algorithm for optimization problems, was
successfully implemented and tested. Two kinds of representations concerning
chromosomes were utilized: binary and real. The results obtained show that the
proposed method is more precise than the traditional Fourier Transform,
especially considering the real representation of the chromosomes.
