Microsecond intermittent fault detection for wire and connector defect prognostics

F. Auzanneau (1) , C. Layer (1)

1 DACLE-LIST - Département d'Architectures, Conception et Logiciels Embarqués-LIST

Wire fault detection has been identified as a crucial need for aircraft safety. Several accidents were reportedly caused by intermittent faults such as arcs, encouraging studies on their detection. Detecting intermittent defects is only possible if the detection device is embedded within or close to the harness and it requires a very fast and efficient method, robust to noise. The recently presented Chaos Time Domain Reflectometry (CTDR) method has shown high robustness to noise and the capacity of monitoring power as well as communication wires without interfering with existing signals. This paper shows that CTDR can detect short intermittent faults in wires, shorter than one microsecond, paving the way to the early detection of incipient defects long before they impact the quality of service of the system, for wire and connector defect prognostics.

Keywords: Aircraft accidents; Aircraft detection; Chaos theory; Defects; Electric fault currents; Quality of service; Reflection; Reflectometers; Systems engineering; Time domain analysis; Wire; Communication wire; CTDR; Detection device; Intermittent fault; prognostics; Reflectometry; Time domain reflectometry; Wire fault detection; Fault detection

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]

F. Auzanneau, C. Layer. Microsecond intermittent fault detection for wire and connector defect prognostics. 2017 IEEE SENSORS, Oct 2017, Glasgow, United Kingdom. pp.1-3, ⟨10.1109/ICSENS.2017.8234439⟩. ⟨cea-01817857⟩