Method of Fault Detection and Rerouting
AssigneesUnited States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and, Space Administration
InventorsPedro J. Medelius, Tracy L. Gibson, Mark E. Lewis
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for detecting damage in an electrical wire, including delivering at least one test electrical signal to an outer electrically conductive material in a continuous or non-continuous layer covering an electrically insulative material layer that covers an electrically conductive wire core. Detecting the test electrical signals in the outer conductive material layer to obtain data that is processed to identify damage in the outer electrically conductive material layer.
Claims20
A method of detecting damage in an electrical wire comprising:
- (i) delivering one or more test electrical signals to (a) an outer electrically conductive material in a continuous or noncontinuous layer covering (b) an electrically insulative material layer that covers (c) an electrically conductive wire core;
- (ii) detecting the test electrical signals in the outer electrically conductive material layer (a) to obtain data about the test electrical signals in the outer electrically conducting material layer;
- (iii) processing the data to identify damage in the outer electrically conductive material layer, the electrically insulating material layer, or the wire core;
- wherein the wire is a live wire and the electrically conductive wire core carries an operating energy under a potential at least as large as the test electrical signals in layer (a) during the delivering and detecting steps.
A method of detecting damage to an electrical wire comprising:
- (i) delivering a plurality of test electrical signals to a wire;
- (ii) detecting the test electrical signals to obtain electrical detection data;
- (iii) processing the electrical detection data by a method comprising integrating electrical detection data from the plurality of test electrical signals to detect damage to the wire;
- wherein the wire is a live wire carrying an operating energy under a potential at least 20 times larger than the potential of the test electrical pulses during the delivering and detecting steps.
A system for detecting damage to a wire, the system comprising:
- a wire comprising an electrical conductor;
- an electrical signal generator electrically linked to the electrical conductor and adapted to deliver a plurality of test electrical signals to the electrical conductor of the wire;
- a detector circuit electrically linked to the electrical conductor of the wire and adapted to detect the test electrical signals in the electrical conductor of the wire to obtain electrical signal detection data and to process the signal detection data by a method comprising integrating signal detection data from the plurality of signals to detect damage to the wire;
- wherein the wire is a live wire carrying an operating energy under a potential at least 20 times larger than the potential of the test electrical signals while the electrical signal generator is delivering the plurality of test electrical signals and the detector circuit is detecting the current from the test electrical pulses and processing the current detection data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.