Patent ID: 8892414

Claim:
A custom computing apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a memory coupled to the at least one processor; and a storage medium coupled to the memory and the at least one processor, the storage medium comprising a set of processor executable instructions that when executed by the at least one processor configure the custom computing apparatus to determine performance of a transmission-line system in response to an electrical input, the configured custom apparatus comprising: an input module for receiving in the memory ABCD parameters of a transmission-line system comprising a plurality of transmission lines; an analysis module configuring the processor and the memory for extracting transmission-line parameters of the transmission-line system from the ABCD parameters using discontinuity-detection-based phase unwrapping, wherein the phase unwrapping comprises configuring the processor to perform: (i) extraction and storage in the memory of propagation constants associated with the plurality of transmission lines, (ii) determination of eigenvalues of A matrix of the ABCD parameters for each frequency in a set of frequencies corresponding to the electrical input, and (iii) preservation in memory a position of each eigenvalue with frequency by moving at least one eigenvalue in a matrix, preventing introduction of artificial discontinuities during the extraction of transmission-line parameters; and a simulator module configuring the processor for estimating a response of the transmission-line system to the electrical input, the response being based at least in part on the extracted transmission-line parameters stored in the memory.