Moreover, stranded cables are generally considered
as a solid core. These assumptions are unsuitable,
particularly, at high frequencies since stranded cables
have larger resistances compared to solid core ones
(Meng et al., 2002). To counter these effects, we de-
veloped in this paper a model that takes into account
the pitch of twist, strand area per conductor and fre-
quency dependent effects (i.e. skin effect, proximity
effect, etc.). The developed model is validated with
3D-electromagnetic simulations using Time Domain
Reflectometry (TDR). To ensure online diagnosis, Or-
thogonal Multi-Tone Time Domain Reflectometry is
used thanks to its capacity to control bandwidth and
enable sensors fusion (Cabanillas et al., 2018b; Has-
sen et al., 2018). In complex wiring networks, the
developed model is used to evaluate the performance
of the OMTDR-based diagnosis sensor including Xil-
inx Zynq 7010 FPGA, 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Con-
verter (ADC) and Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC)
in different configurations (Cabanillas et al., 2018a).
The rest of the paper is organized as follows:
In section 2, the distributed parameters model of a
twisted pair is introduced. The validation of the de-
veloped model is verified by 3D electromagnetic sim-
ulations in section 3. After that, section 4 proposes
to study the behavior of the developed model of the
twisted pair as a function of the signal frequency,
pitch of twist, and cable length. In section 5, an evalu-
ation of the OMTDR-based sensor in complex wiring
networks is performed.
2 TRANSMISSION LINE MODEL
An UTP is a transmission line composed of two con-
ductors spirally wound around each other to limit sen-
sitivity to interference and cross-talk. It is widely
used in the aeronautical field for controller appli-
cation not limited to the Controller Area Network
(CAN) bus, MIL-STD-1553B, etc. The characteris-
tic impedance, Z
c
, of a transmission line is a func-
tion of the distributed parameters (per unit length) se-
ries Resistance R, series inductance L, shunt capaci-
tance C, and shunt conductance G. The characteristic
impedance is thus defined as follows:
Z
c
=
s
R + j2π f L
G + j2π fC
. (1)
where f is the frequency. In the case of a lossy
twisted-pair transmission line, distributed parameters
are modeled using electrical and geometrical proper-
ties such as conductor diameter, dielectric loss, etc.
The helical pitch angle of twist influences the dielec-
tric constant denoted ε
eq
and is calculated in equation
(2) as follows (Lefferson, 1971):
θ = tan
−1
(2T πD), (2)
where T is the number of twists per meter and D is
the distance between the centers of conductors. The
twist correction factor is then used to adjust the di-
electric constant in equation (3) as follows (Truong,
2000):
q = 0.45 +10
−3
θ ·
180
π
2
. (3)
The equivalent dielectric constant integrating the
influence of the twist angle ε
eq
can be calculated in
equation (4) as follows (Kasthala and Venkatesan,
2016):
ε
eq
= 1 + q(ε
r
−1), (4)
where ε
r
is the relative permittivity. With the de-
termined equivalent dielectric constant, the capacity
can be described as:
C =
πε
0
ε
eq
log
10
D
d
+
q
D
d
2
−1
, (5)
where, the parameter ε
0
is the permittivity of air.
In the same manner, the inductance per unit length of
the cable is given in (6):
L =
µ
0
µ
r
π
log
10
D
d
+
s
D
d
2
−1
, (6)
where µ
0
is the permeability of free space and µ
r
is the relative permeability of the dielectric.
Since reflectometry operates at a high frequency
to ensure accurate fault location, the model must re-
flect the behavior of the transmission line at such
bands. In this context, there are two factors that deter-
mine the current distribution on the conductor cross-
section. The first is the skin effect which, for high fre-
quency, causes a concentration of the current near the
outer surfaces of the cylindrical conductor (Wheeler,
1942). When a current flows through two or more
adjacent conductors, the current distribution in a con-
ductor is affected by the magnetic flux produced by
the adjacent conductors, as well as by the magnetic
flux produced by the current in the conductor itself.
This phenomenon is called proximity effect and causes
a resistance value greater than that of a simple skin
effect (Ferkal et al., 1996). In this paper, we note the
proximity factor P that is determined according to the
ratio between D and d as described in (Smith, 1971).
A Stranded Unshielded Twisted Pair Modeling for Online Fault Location using OMTDR-based Diagnosis Sensor
41