Wired network distributed diagnosis and sensors communications by multi-carrier time domain reflectometry

Abstract

This contribution demonstrates the feasibility of integrating sensors communications on diagnosis signal of wired networks. The objective of this study is to propose a new distributed diagnosis technology for complex wire networks to ensure the communication between sensors by using the transmitted part of the reflectometry signal. This communication contributes to improve the diagnosis quality by reflectometers data fusion. The MCTDR (Multi-carrier Time Domain Reflectometry) shows good performance (faults detection and localization) on distributed diagnosis with a precise control of the signals spectrum while avoiding interference. We use this signal as a carrier of information without degrading these good characteristics. This communication is robust to cable faults and noise. We thus exploit simultaneously the reflected part and the transmitted part of the signal.