De-embedding Unmatched Connectors for Electric Cable Fault Diagnosis

Abstract

In order to make accurate reflectometry measurements on electric cables for fault diagnosis, connector de-embedding is a procedure for compensating measurement distortions caused by unmatched connectors. The key step in such a procedure is the characterization of the connectors, which is realized through measurements on a pair of connectors linked by a short cable segment. The analysis for deducing the characteristics of a single connector from measurements made on an assembled pair is known as the bisection problem. In this paper, after recalling the underdetermined nature of the bisection problem, a practically effective de-embedding procedure is proposed based on a particular regularization technique. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of this procedure.