Reflectrometry based fault localization in automotive bus systems

In this paper we describe a low level method for detecting and locating faults in the electrical physical layer of automotive networks based on time-domain reflectometry. Especially for safety-critical networks this approach could be a valuable complement for the existing network management layers, since it has the potential to detect damaged cables and plugs even before they cause serious malfunctions. We illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method by analyzing several FlexRay clusters with- and without faults.