Patent ID: 7337079

Claim:
A time-frequency domain reflectometry apparatus for detecting and locating faults in an electric conductor comprising: a wire/cable to be tested; an arbitrary wave form generator that generates a designed input reference signal in time and frequency domain for said conductor under test; a data acquisition instrument that stores said reference signal and said reflected signal from said conductor under test, and transmits stored files to a device control program of a personal computer; a personal computer (PC) configured to perform a main control program of a predetermined time-frequency domain reflectometry, including: a device control program that controls data acquisition devices, determines time delay, voltage offset, and sampling level of a wave form, and architects an input signal, a time-frequency domain analysis control program that analyzes time-frequency domain of said reference signal and of said wave data reflected from said wire/cable, and a digital signal processing control program that receives said files of said reference signal and said reflected wave input at said data acquisition instrument through a general purpose interface bus, and then transmits the files to a digital signal processor; and a digital signal processor that computes with a DSP program of said time-frequency domain analysis control program, to detect and locate faults in said conductor, by calculating time-frequency distribution function of said reflected signal.