OMTDR using BER estimation for ambiguities cancellation in ramified networks diagnosis

Nowadays, increasing demands for on-line wire diagnosis using reflectometry have imposed serious challenges on signals processing, bandwidth control and interference mitigation. On-line diagnosis aims at detecting and locating faults accurately while the target system is running. In this work, a new reflectometry method, named “Orthogonal Multi-Tone Time Domain Reflectometry” (OMTDR), is proposed. OMTDR, based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), is a suitable candidate for on-line diagnosis as it permits interference avoidance, bandwidth control and data rate increase thanks to the use of orthogonal tones and guard intervals. Over the diagnosis function, OMTDR adds communication between sensors to more accurately determine faults position in a multi-branch network using a distributed strategy. OMTDR was tested on a branched network consisting of three cables with different lengths, with sensors at each cable end. Here, the sensors signals are carefully constructed using a resource allocation scheme to use frequencies below and above the prohibited bandwidth, used by the target system, for communication and diagnosis. Simulation results show that the proposed method performs well in a branched wiring network as it permits to detect and locate faults accurately even when the target system is operating.