Utilizing the Born and Rytov Inverse Scattering Approximations for Detecting Soft Faults in Lossless Transmission Lines

Abstract

We apply and experimentally verify inverse scattering techniques based on the Born and Rytov approximations for detecting soft faults in lossless transmission lines. The advantages of these approximate approaches compared with exact formulations such as those based on the Zakharov-Shabat equations are that they are straightforward to apply and provide intuitive insight into the reconstruction process. The formulations are also well-posed so the effects of noise and measurement errors on the reconstructions are also well behaved. The approaches are well suited for the detection of soft faults since they are based on the assumption that the medium is weakly scattering. We demonstrate the techniques with both experimental and numerical results. In addition, the application to lossy transmission lines is also investigated to determine the approximations usefulness in realistic settings. These show that surprisingly accurate results can be obtained for a wide range of characteristic impedance distributions even when the transmission lines have loss.