The differential protection of power transformers appears to be more difficult than any type of protection for any other part or element in a power system. Such difficulties arise from the existence of the magnetizing inrush phenomenon. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize between inrush current and the current arise from internal faults. In this paper, two approaches based on wavelet packet transform (WPT) and S-transform (ST) are applied to recognize different types of currents following in the transformer. In WPT approach, the selection of optimal mother wavelet and the optimal number of resolution is carried out using minimum description length (MDL) criteria before taking the decision for the extraction features from the WPT tree. In ST approach,
the spectral energy index and the standard deviation (STD) are calculated from the S-matrix obtained by discrete S-transform. The two approaches are tested for generating a trip signal and disconnecting the transformer supply experimentally using 1KVA, 220/110V, 50Hz, ∆ / Y threephase transformer. The experimental results show that the trip signal is initiated faster in WPT approach while the transformer is disconnected from the supply after a delay of 10-15msec in the
two approaches due to computer interface and the relay circuit used.