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Hybrid meta heuristic and fuzzy impedance method for fast fault location in power system lines
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  • Published: 10 February 2026

Hybrid meta heuristic and fuzzy impedance method for fast fault location in power system lines

  • Masoud Najafzadeh1,
  • Jaber Pouladi1,
  • Ali Daghigh1,
  • Jamal Beiza1 &
  • …
  • Taher Abedinzadeh1 

Scientific Reports , Article number:  (2026) Cite this article

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We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

Subjects

  • Energy science and technology
  • Engineering
  • Mathematics and computing

Abstract

This study discusses a new and accurate fault location method for power system lines in power networks. The exact location of the fault and the distance of the line from one end are determined by training the proposed positioning system with experimental reference data. Phasor measurement units (PMUs) at one end of the power line effectively monitor the entire system. First, the types of problems are identified and categorized using the PMU measurement signals. The fault location was then diagnosed using a nonlinear modeling technique to locate the fault based on the impedance of one end. Two non-linear fault locating estimation methods are described based on the fuzzy logic system and the fifth-order Taylor expansion polynomial fitting system. The samples have been used to train the parameters of the proposed positioning systems using the Fire Hawk Optimizer (FHO) algorithm. Therefore, the objective is to determine the distance at which the fault occurs, locate the fault spot precisely, and determine the distance from the PMU at the end of the line. The three-bus system for a 200 km long, 220 kV power line has been assessed and verified using the Simulink environment of MATLAB software. The results show how effective the proposed method is at locating the exact location of the power line issue with the least amount of error in a PMU. Finally, with an execution duration of less than 0.16 s, the method has shown a high search speed on a case study model.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors did not receive any financial support for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Shab.C, Islamic Azad University, Shabestar, Iran

    Masoud Najafzadeh, Jaber Pouladi, Ali Daghigh, Jamal Beiza & Taher Abedinzadeh

Authors
  1. Masoud Najafzadeh
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  2. Jaber Pouladi
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  3. Ali Daghigh
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  4. Jamal Beiza
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  5. Taher Abedinzadeh
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Contributions

Each author made a contribution to the design and conceptualization of the study. M.N., J.P., A.D., J.B., and T.A. collected, simulated, and analyzed the data. J.P. wrote the first draft of the paper, and all authors provided feedback on earlier iterations. The final manuscript was read and approved by all writers.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jaber Pouladi or Ali Daghigh.

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Najafzadeh, M., Pouladi, J., Daghigh, A. et al. Hybrid meta heuristic and fuzzy impedance method for fast fault location in power system lines. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-33182-5

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  • Received: 04 May 2025

  • Accepted: 16 December 2025

  • Published: 10 February 2026

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-33182-5

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Keywords

  • Power system lines
  • Fault location
  • Hybrid fuzzy-impedance method
  • PMUs
  • Fire hawk optimizer (FHO) algorithm
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