Vacuum circuit breaker is one of the major critical components that controls and protects the power system. The breaking capability of the vacuum switch directly affects the safety of the power system. However, the breaking capability of the vacuum switch is determined by the morphological characteristics of the vacuum arc images. In this paper, in order to research the variation of the vacuum arc, a high-speed CMOS camera system is used to collect the vacuum arc images within a short gap (7mm), the morphological characteristics of the vacuum arc images are extracted based on the digital image processing. At last, the variation of the arc is analyzed.
