Patent ID: 6161077
Filing Date: 2000-12-12
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
A method for determining the location of faults along an electrical conductor having a near end and a far end comprising the steps of:applying a voltage signal to the near end of said electrical conductor to energize said electrical conductor sufficiently for discharging at any said fault therein, said electrical conductor being operable to propagate at least one of a plurality of pulses comprising a primary pulse originating at any said fault in response to the excitation of the electrical conductor by said voltage signal and traveling toward the near end of said electrical conductor, a first reflected pulse corresponding to the reflection of said primary pulse at the far end of said electrical conductor, a second order pulse and a higher order pulse corresponding to the reflection of said first reflected at a corresponding one of the near end and the far end of said electrical conductor, and a transient interference pulse coupled to said electrical conductor via the environment surrounding said electrical conductor;storing data relating to the length of said electrical conductor, said data being selected from the group consisting of the propagation time for at least one of said first pulse and said plurality of pulses to travel along said electrical conductor, the length of said electrical conductor, and velocity of said at least one of said primary pulse and said plurality of pulses traveling along said electrical conductor;establishing a reference buffer corresponding to the length of said electrical conductor using said data;initializing said reference buffer to zero;obtaining a plurality of samples from said electrical conductor corresponding to the amplitude of any of said plurality of pulses;storing said plurality of samples in a working buffer;scanning said plurality of samples in said working buffer to locate a first one of said plurality of pulses having an amplitude level that is greater than a predetermined signal level;storing selected ones of said plurality of samples as respective entries in a temporary buffer, said selected samples comprising samples corresponding to said first one of said plurality of pulses and subsequent ones of said plurality of samples stored in said working buffer, the number of said selected samples corresponding to the length of said electrical conductor;normalizing said entries in said temporary buffer such that the magnitude of said first one of said pulses is unity;adding said entries in said temporary buffer to corresponding entries in said reference buffer; andrepeating said obtaining step, said storing step for storing said plurality of samples, said scanning step, said storing step for storing said selected samples, said normalizing step and said adding step, said entries in said reference buffer representing a statistical average of said pulses during a period of time corresponding to the amount of time required for one of said pulses to travel the length of said electrical conductor.