FPGA based protection relay

[poiuy]

Hello,
Someone in my department keeps saying we should start looking into FPGA based protection relays. I know something similar can be used for monitoring and protecting the HV transmission lines but I don't have a clue where to start looking for more information on this.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Even if it's general information, I have to read as much as I can about this so that I can understand what's it about.
Thanks.

 

[poiuy]

...anyone ??

 

[gordonl]

You could start by suggesting the meaning of FPGA, the only FPGA I can think of is Field Programmable Gate Arrays for low level logic automation, but most protective relays are based on full blown processors, can't say I know of any based on FPGA chips.

 

[Aakhrinaam]

FPGA's are used in protective relays to handle signal processing and sometimes even filtering.
I am not a hardware designer myself but I know that they are used in interprocessor communication.

In a nutshell they take a load off the CPU by doing basic logic functions , but since they are programmable , the functionality of the software can be changed to suit the needs of the application.