The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 23, 2001
Filed:
Apr. 21, 1999
Raymond L. Chong, San Jose, CA (US);
Sunrise Telecom, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A method for detecting the presence of a bridge tap and other types of fault in a transmission line. Initially, test signals of predetermined frequencies are transmitted into a transmitting end of the transmission line. The test signals are received at a receiving end of the transmission line and the amplitudes of the received signal are measured. A frequency response of the transmission line is computed based on the measured amplitudes. The frequency response is then analyzed for the presence of a frequency-domain signature that corresponds to one of the detectable types of fault. The presence of a bridge tap or another type of fault is identified based on the detected frequency-domain signature. The frequency-domain signature associated with a bridge tap can comprise a set of one or more attenuation dips in the frequency response, with each attenuation dip corresponding to a local minima in the frequency response. The length of the bridge tap can be estimated based on a fundamental frequency of the set of harmonically related attenuation dips. Also, the location of the bridge tap in the transmission line can be estimated by performing a time domain reflectometer (TDR) test.