Novel Reflectometry Method Based on Time Reversal for Cable Aging Characterization

This paper investigates the effects of aging on electrical cable characteristics and proposes a new method for detecting and characterizing cable aging (i.e. homogeneous slow degradation) based on time reversal. In case of a global cable aging, the commonly used methods such as reflectometry provide non-relevant or inaccurate information. Through theoretical study and numerical simulations, the benefits of this new method called Time Reversal Reflectometry (TRR) are presented. TRR is experimentally shown to be successful for the detection and quantification of cable aging.