A Dispersion-Compensated Algorithm for the Analysis of Electromagnetic Waveguides

Electromagnetic waveguides have dispersive properties, meaning the phase and group velocities change with frequency. This dispersion leads to broadening in the time-domain impulse response, which can make it difficult to separate adjacent signals if they overlap. To help address this issue, we present a dispersion-compensated algorithm for the analysis of electromagnetic waveguides. This algorithm maps signals measured in the frequency-domain to the distance-domain, and vice versa. It uses a priori information of the waveguide's propagation constant to compensate for dispersion and preserve features in the distance-domain impulse response, even over large distances. The dispersion-compensated algorithm has a variety of applications, including accurate distance-to-fault measurements and highly selective distance-domain windowing. For a simple demonstration, we show how the algorithm can be used to analyze data from a waveguide cavity resonator.