Signature representation of underground cables and its applications to cable fault diagnosis

The pulse-echo method for cable fault location is studied using transmission line theory. It is shown that both the position and the magnitude of pulse echoes can be determined in terms of the cable dimensions and the fault conditions. For a healthy cable, an algorithm for estimating the cable topology and the cable dimensions from its pulse-echo response is obtained. This provides a justification for taking the pulse-echo response as a signature representation of the cable