New impedance-based fault location approach is proposed for overhead distribution systems using only one end voltage and current measurements..

The approach compensates various aspects of distribution systems: tapped laterals, time varying loads, and unbalanced operations.

One quadratic formula is introduced with two groups of constants for estimating location of all fault types.

The proposed approach is extensively tested using MATLAB simulations on a typical real 11 kV distribution system to ensure its effectiveness.

The proposed approach has proved robustness to overcome the challenges of network topology change and non-homogenous network sections.