Optical Monitoring to Detect Contamination of Power Grid Components

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, Jan. 17 -- PALO ALTO RESEARCH CENTER INC., Palo Alto, California has been assigned a patent (No. US 11555864 B2, initially filed Oct. 28, 2021) developed by four inventors Saman Mostafavi, Charlotte, North Carolina; Hong Yu, Fremont, California; Ajay Raghavan, Mountain View, California; and Peter Kiesel, Palo Alto, California, for "Optical monitoring to detect contamination of power grid components."

A monitoring system includes an array of optical sensors disposed within a transformer tank. Each optical sensor is configured to have an optical output that changes in response to a temperature within the transformer tank. An analyzer is coupled to the array of optical sensors. The analyzer is configured to determine a sensed temperature distribution based on the sensed temperature. The sensed temperature distribution is compared to an expected distribution. Exterior contamination of the transformer tank is detected based on the comparison.