Effect of Electrical Contact Degradation on Analog Signal Transmission

Abstract

Electrical contact failure can cause attenuation and phase shift of signals in communication systems. A major source of contact failure is the degradation of the contact interface. Accordingly, it is important to investigate the impact of a degraded contact surface on signal transmission. In this present work, an equivalent model for the contact interface of a coaxial connector was proposed, and a connector equivalent model was also developed. Simulations were performed to evaluate the magnitudes and phases of the output voltages based on the analog modulation signals with a frequency of 0.1 MHz. In addition, a test platform consisting of a signal generator and an oscilloscope was used to measure the waveforms of the associated output voltage. The simulation voltage results were very consistent with the experimental results for both undegraded and degraded connectors. The results indicate that contact failure leads to attenuation and phase shift in analog modulation signals.