Detecting and locating electrical shorts using group testing

Consideration is given to the problem of detecting and locating electrical shorts among a set of nets using an apparatus which, when connected to two groups of nets, can detect, but not locate, the presence of a short between them. This problem was previously considered by J.K. Skilling and a clever method was patented by him (US Patent 4 342 959, Aug. 1982). The authors relate this short-locating problem to the well-studied group-testing problem and borrow some results from there to devise a procedure for the former. They show that the resulting procedure compares favorably with Skilling's method. They also consider the case in which one of the two groups of nets being tested is restricted in size, as is true in many practical applications.<>