This paper summarizes two kinds of fault detection techniques for distribution automation, that is with and without communication in fault detection, and then analyzes their merits and shortcomings. Moreover, according to the development tendency of distribution automation techniques, this paper presents an approach, through which the noncommunication FTU devices can detect transient fault voltage of distribution systems effectually. To detect transient fault voltage without standby batteries, the PIC Single Chip microcomputer with low power consumption and DSP chip with powerful data processing capabilities are adopted to form a dual CPU system. To realize the communication between the two CPUs, the general I/O port,s of the DSP chip are firstly used to simulate the UART communication of the serial ports and communicate with the PIC Single Chip microcomputer. The novel FTU devices based on this approach are tested in static and dynamic simulation experiments, the results are satisfied.