Implementation of a time-frequency domain reflectometry system with PXI platform for a coaxial cable [fault location]

In this paper, we implement a time-frequency domain reflectometry (TFDR) system through the instruments of PCI extensions for instrumentation (PXI). Moreover, an improved TDR methodology is suggested to reduce the blind spot which is caused by comparatively low performance of PXI instruments. The TFDR system is composed of the following three PXI instruments: an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) module for generating the input signal, a digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) module for acquiring the input and reflected signals, and a PXI controller module for performing the control of all the PXI modules and the execution of the main algorithm. This TFDR algorithm can measure a more accurate fault location than the traditional methodologies by adopting the time-frequency analysis techniques. For the problem of the blind spot, the classical correlation junction is used between the input and reflected signals. The usefulness of the proposed system and methodology is verified by real experiments.