A Human-on-the-Loop Cyber-Physical Framework for Fault-Aware Service Restoration in Nigerian Distribution Feeders

Requirements Derived from EEDC Industrial Training

Abstract

Distribution fault management depends on more than fault recognition. An operator or automation controller must establish the affected section, confirm switching-device states, find a feasible post-fault topology, respect protection and equipment limits, and verify that service has returned without creating a new hazard. This paper proposes a human-on-the-loop cyber-physical architecture for distribution feeders in Nigeria, with its requirements grounded in the author’s industrial training at the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC)/MainPower. The training report records field exposure to right-of-way hazards, sagging conductors, transformer load assessment and commissioning, fuse-rating checks, relay work, insulation-resistance tests, earthing tests, power-quality inspection, and materials control. These activities motivate a design in which local protection remains independent of machine-learning inference and remote communications, while software proposes only switching actions that pass explicit electrical, topology, state-freshness, and authorization checks. The paper reconciles prior drafts against verified literature and separates published findings from author-proposed methods and claims that lack reproducible evidence. It formulates a constrained feeder-restoration problem, describes a candidate waveform classifier and policy-learning layer, and defines reliability, power-quality, latency, safety, cybersecurity, and economic evaluation measures. The proposed research has not yet been validated on an EEDC feeder; therefore, no numerical improvement in restoration time, SAIDI, SAIFI, or line losses is claimed. A reproducible evaluation plan using OpenDSS and a documented benchmark network is specified before any utility-specific calibration or field pilot. The result is a research framework and validation protocol, not a report of completed field or simulation experiments.