Abstract
This paper introduces an optimization technique that uses an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm to solve the fault section estimation (FSE) problem. FSE is introduced as an optimization problem, where the objective function includes the status of protective relays and circuit breakers. The ABC algorithm is a new population-based optimization technique inspired by behavior of the bee colony to search honey. In order to test the effectiveness of the proposed technique, two sample systems are tested under various test cases. Also the results obtained by the proposed ABC algorithm is compared with those obtained using two other methods. The results show the accuracy and high computation efficiency of the ABC algorithm. The ABC algorithm has a main advantage that it has only two parameters to be controlled. Therefore, the tuning of the proposed algorithm is easier and has a higher probability to reach the optimum solution than other competing methods.