Automated test solutions for multifunctional protection relays

Currently, there are many challenges in the development of numerical, multifunctional Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) paraphrased as relays in this paper. These are to continuously improve the design quality, to reduce the development period for shorter time to market, and to optimise the development cost and the product cost. One effective solution for these challenges is to develop automated test tools. These tools could then be used to build an automated test environment, which can be used to validate the new numerical multifunctional protection relay. This paper describes such an automated validation test set-up being assembled for a new generation of numerical multifunctional protection relays. Obviously, the main aim of this automated validation test-up was to test the new relays from an End User perspective and to enhance the product quality. After accomplishing the automated validation testing, thousands of cases can be tested within an optimised time period without increasing the burden on project resources. This increases the testing efficiency and in turn, increases the validation tests. This system also encourages the validation team to test communication aspects of the relay, and thereby preparing the relay to work in a Smarter Grid. The automated validation test system is a proactive, secure, efficient, repeatable and an error-free approach to avoid product defects being found in-service by End Users.