A Cable Defect Location and Assessment Method Based on the Hilbert-Enveloped Reflection Coefficient

Time-frequency domain reflectometry is a sensitive method for locating cable defects. However, common time-frequency domain reflectometry methods cannot assess the severity of the located defects, which may lead to unnecessary cable replacement. Therefore, a cable defect location and assessment method based on the Hilbert-enveloped reflection coefficient is proposed in this paper. The method extracts the attenuation curves of the incident signal through the propagation coefficients to avoid the errors caused by the signal attenuation. In addition, the refraction compensation factor is proposed to avoid the extra errors caused by the reflection and refraction of defect signal. In simulation and experiments, the defect location errors are all less than 1 %, and the assessment errors are less than 6 %. The method is expected to locate cable defects and assess their severity.