A tunable capacitor sensor for a real-time buried cable protection-i

Telephone buried cable (BC) protection is an essential demand to perform successful wired telecommunication system against theft. Data logging from sensor and electronic communication system can monitor buried cable state to ensure exist of the buried cable to be protected. A number of parameters are associated with telephone buried cable, thus different types of sensors are required to measure the individual affecting factor. A simple capacitive sensor system is proposed and validated by simulation. The result shows that any change of dielectric constant property of the soil material is a direct indication of theft attempt. Due to simple capacitive structure of the sensor system, it is highly robust and easy to implement. The system can easily be implemented with an existing telephone cable structure. A wire or wireless telemetry system can be used to send the real-time data from the proposed sensor to a desktop computer at the monitoring lab in the exchange (central) [1].