Modeling of STDR system for locating faults in live aircraft wires

Wiring problems in aging aircraft have been identified as the cause of several tragic mishaps and hundreds of thousands of lost mission hours. Intermittent wiring faults, which occur during flight, have been and continue to be difficult to resolve. This makes it necessary to monitor live aircraft wires continuously, without affecting the aircraft signals on live wires. Monitoring of live aircraft wires can be accomplished by various Reflectometry methods. Sequence Time Domain Reflectometry (STDR) is one of the Time Domain Reflectometry methods for detecting discontinuities on live wires carrying signals or data, without disturbing them. In this paper, we have modeled this STDR system using MATLAB coding and interfacing with the Simulink blocks. This model prototypes the STDR method along with correlation to detect either open or short circuits.