934 / 2019-04-30 17:55:27

An Automatic TDR Cable Fault Location Method Based on Mexic-hat Pulses and Correlation

TDR,Mexic-hat,Correlation,Cable,Fault location

In traditional Time-Domain-Reflectometry(TDR) cable fault location methods, rectangular pulses with a wide band of the frequency spectrum are used. The wave velocity in correlation-based TDRs is difficult to determine due to the dispersion and attenuation of the traveling waves, especially for the long faulty cables. This limits the precision and automation levels of TDRs. Mexic-hat pulses with narrow bandwidth are used in this paper. The width of the Mexic-hat pulse is determined based on the calculation of the cable’s propagation characteristics. The wave velocity in the location algorithm is estimated at the phase velocity of the center frequency of the Mexic-hat pulse. The propagation time of the traveling waves is acquired by locating the peaks of the moving-window-correlation curve. The fault location is calculated with the wave velocity and the propagation time. Simulation results show that the absolute error and relative error for open circuit and short circuit faults are limited to no more than 23m and 0.53% within a length range of 1-12km respectively.