Abstract
We propose a method to estimate the number of partial discharge sources in multipath environment using the multichannel blind deconvolution method called the super-exponential deflation method. Blind deconvolution is a method of recovering transmitted signals from only observed signals without any a priori knowledge of the source signals. The deflation approach can extract a source signal which is non-Gaussian from the observed signals one by one. The deflation approach is repeated until all non-Gaussian signals are extracted, in which case the input signals become close to Gaussian noise. The eigenvalues of the spatial correlation matrix of the input signals indicate whether the input signals are Gaussian noise or not. Thus, the proposed method estimates the number of PD sources by repeating the deflation approach and analyzing the eigenvalues.
