Spread Spectrum Sensors for Critical fault location on live wire networks

Summary—Aging wiring networks have been identified as an area of critical national and international concern.  One of the particularly challenging problems is the location of intermittent faults that cannot be replicated on the ground.  This paper describes the application of spread spectrum fault location and wire health monitoring methods whose unique low-interference potential and high-noise immunity enable them to locate faults while networks are active.  The analysis and feasibility of this method has been described in previous work, and this paper focuses on evaluation of the accuracy of the method and effects of branched wire networks on the sensor response.

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