This paper presents a fifth-generation (5G) wireless smart antenna for performing both power substation communication (in space domain beam-steering) and electrostatic discharge (in time domain Ultra-high Frequency "UHF" impulse) detection. The same smart antenna used to communicate with other wireless antennas in the switchyard, as well as with the control room, is utilized to cyclically gather data from power apparatus, busbars, and switches where electrostatic discharge (ESD) may occur. The ESD poses a major threat to electrical safety and lifetime of the apparatus as well as the stability of the power system. The same smart antenna on which beam rotation in space-domain is designed by implementing an artificial neural network (ANN) is also trained in time-domain to identify any of the received signals matching the ultra-high frequency band electrostatic discharge pulses that may be superimposed on the power frequency electric current. The proposed system of electrostatic discharge detection is tested for electrostatic pulses empirically simulated and represented in a trigonometric form for the training of the Perceptron Neural model. The working of the system is demonstrated for electrostatic discharge pulses with rising times of the order of one nanosecond. The artificial intelligence system driving the 5G smart antenna performs the dual roles of beam steering for 5G wireless communication (operating in the space domain) and for picking up any ESD generated UHF pulses from any one of the apparatus or nearby lightning leaders (operating in the time domain).

The much-anticipated year of 5G deployment has lapsed, and yet much research is ongoing on the 5G New Radio (NR) interface. The quality of service and user experience is dependent on a stable and signal strength of the wireless communication link. To serve multiple users per sector accessing dedicated and unique services pose a challenge for passive antenna systems with omnidirectional beams. Smart 5G antenna technology with null forming and beamforming promises to serve mobile users well by offering a reliable wireless communication link. To address this need, we propose a 2 × 2 MIMO antenna capable of electronically forming electromagnetic beams in one direction and nullifying electromagnetic beams in any undesired direction. We demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed antenna by evaluating five cases that showed interesting insights, confirming the hypothesis that it is possible to implement beamforming in a 2×2 MIMO system with less computing power and minimum number crunching. What is novel and attractive about the proposed antenna are: (a) forming a beam with maximum directivity towards the desired user, while (b) simultaneously producing nulls towards an undesirable transmitter, and (c) a fast electromagnetic tracking module inbuilt into it so that the base station antenna may constantly track and maintain the communication link with the moving wireless transceiver or cell phone. While most wireless mobile systems use two separate software modules for beamforming and tracking the mobile station, the method presented here does electronic beamforming and tracking of the mobile user with a single low memory, computationally fast technique within the range of 10 ms to 19 s.