A broadband time-domain technique for the measurement of the frequency dependent complex permittivity in lossy transmission line systems

Presents a novel numerical hybrid time/frequency-domain technique for accurate broadband characterization of the complex dielectric constant of transmission line systems using the TDR (time-domain reflectometer). The properties of linear systems are exploited to avoid the FFT (fast Fourier transform) truncation and aliasing errors introduced by processing data from measurement systems. The measurement accuracy has been significantly enhanced by extracting the AC variations of the dielectric constant itself. To demonstrate the usefulness of the approach, a simple cable was characterized using this technique.<>