Breaking nyquist limitations in reflectometry-based wire diagnosis systems by compressive sampling

Reflectometry is a wire diagnosis technique to detect and localize electrical defects in Network Under Tests efficiently. In order to achieve a very precise online diagnosis without altering the functioning of a Network Under Tests, reflectometry methods should use specific wideband Multi-Carrier signals, whose generation requires dedicated numerical tools. The basic architecture of any reflectometry system for the injection of the signal in the Network Under Tests requires appropriate Digital-to-Analog Converters. Even for the most demanding requirements in reflectometry, their specifications in terms of resolution and sampling rate can easily be found. Yet, measuring the reflected signal should be performed using Analog-to-Digital Converters capable of reaching high sampling frequencies together with sufficient resolution. Such converters are either extremely expensive or beyond the current state of the art. In that respect, this paper presents a new architectural approach for designing such reflectometry systems based on a Compressive Sampling method bypassing the Nyquist rate.