Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on

FDTD Method
Jianhui Song, Yanju Liu, Yang Yu

Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on

FDTD Method
1
Jianhui Song, 2Yanju Liu, 3Yang Yu
*1
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang,
110159, P. R. China, hitsong@126.com
2
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang,
110159, P. R. China, 20080571@qq.com
3
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang,
110159, P. R. China, yusongh@126.com

Abstract
In order to investigate the theory of the time domain reflectometry (TDR) cable length measurement,
the transmission line transient analysis iteration formula based on the finite difference time domain
(FDTD) is derived based on the transmission line theory. The electromagnetic wave propagation
theory and the regular pattern of the TDR signal propagating in cables are studied. The theoretical
calculations are consistent with the experimental results, which verify the correctness of the
transmission line transient analysis iteration formula studied in this paper. To further illustrate the
theory of the time domain reflectometry cable length measurement, the iteration formula is applied to
the TDR cable length measurement. The impacts of the shape, width and amplitude of the excitation
signal on the cable length measurement are analyzed.

Keywords: FDTD, Transmission Line, Telegraph Equation, TDR

1. Introduction

A number of different numerical techniques are used in computational electromagnetic interference

problems, each of which has its own strong suit, as well as limitations. Among these, the finite
difference method offers an important advantage over some of the other techniques because it is not
only flexible as well as general-purpose in its scope of applications, but it is highly parallelizable as
well[1]. The finite difference time domain (FDTD) is a very useful numerical simulation technique
proposed by K. S. Yee in 1966[2-4], which is a common way to obtain transient responses of
transmission lines[5-8]. The derivatives in the telegraph equations are discretized and approximated
with various finite differences. In this method the position variable x is discretized as Δx and the time
variable t is discretized as Δt[9,10]. FDTD has an advantage of simplicity, high precision and less
computation and it is widely used in solving various kinds of electromagnetic problems[11-13]. Based
on the transmission line theory, the transmission line transient analysis iteration formula based on the
finite difference time domain (FDTD) is derived. The iteration formula is applied to the time domain
reflectometry (TDR) cable length measurement.

2. TDR cable length measurement systems

TDR is a very useful measuring technology based on high-speed pulse technology. The cable length
measuring principle is very simple. The test voltage pulse is injected into one end of the cable, and the
pulse will be reflected at the end of the cable. By measuring the time interval between the injection
pulse and the reflection pulse, the cable length can be obtained by assuming the velocity as constant.
The formula for length measurement is
v  t
l (1)
2
where l denotes the cable length, v denotes the signal propagating velocity, t denotes the time
interval between the injection pulse and the reflection pulse.

Journal of Convergence Information Technology(JCIT) 258

Volume 7, Number 20, Nov 2012
doi : 10.4156/jcit.vol7.issue20.31
 Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on
FDTD Method
Jianhui Song, Yanju Liu, Yang Yu

The TDR cable length measuring system mainly constitutes of signal generator, oscilloscope and
computer components. Signal generator emits different pulse amplitudes and widths according to the
actual measurement situation. The injection and reflection signal waveform data are collected by the
oscilloscope and processed by computer.

3. Iteration formula based on FDTD

Cable is one of the transmission lines. Ideally, cable line (here in after referred to as cable) can be
regarded as a uniform transmission line.
The transmission line equation is the starting point to analyze the transient process of the
transmission line[14]. Because of the limitations of the existing mathematical tools, it is rather difficult
to find the analytical solution of the transmission line equation. This paper uses finite difference time
domain method to analyze the propagation characteristics of the TDR signal and the transmission line.
If the signal is injected into the transmission line, the electric field and magnetic field will be around
the transmission line. After the time of x/v, the voltage and current at any point Z of the transmission
line will change into 0, where the v is the propagation speed of the signal propagating along the
transmission line, and the x is the distance from the point Z to the signal transmitter distance. It is
obviously that the signal is not a simple spread along the transmission line, but the form of
electromagnetic field propagating in the path between the transmission line and the reference surface.
Therefore, when analyzing the long-term model and the equivalent circuit of the cable, the
transmission line model must be considered as the distributed parameter model, which should not only
consider the resistance and inductance of the line, but also consider the conductance and capacitance
between the conductors.
Even at the same time, the voltage of the transmission line at different location is different, thus the
voltage and current of the transmission line is not only a function of time t, but also a function of
spatial coordinates x, the expression should be the binary function of time t and distance x, which can
be expressed as

u  u ( x, t ) (2)

i  i ( x, t ) (3)

It is known as the uniform transmission line if the resistance, inductance, capacitance and
conductance along the transmission line at any point are equal. The structure and the diameter of the
uniform transmission line must be consistent. Based on the distributed parameter circuit theory, the
original parameters of the uniform transmission line are represented as per-unit-length line parameters.
The equivalent circuit diagram of per-unit-length transmission line is shown as in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Equivalent circuit diagram of per-unit-length transmission line

When the modes have been established a period of time after the excitation in the
transmission line, the forward voltage increasing rate in x-direction is u / x , the current
increasing rate is i / x , the beginning of the voltage and the beginning of current are u and i

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 Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on
FDTD Method
Jianhui Song, Yanju Liu, Yang Yu

u
respectively. Therefore, the voltage at point AB  is u  dx , and the current at point A is
x
i
i dx . When the transmission line distribution parameters are independent of frequency, the
x
time domain telegraph equations are
u ( x, t ) i ( x, t )
 L0  R0 i( x, t )  VF ( x, t ) (4)
x t
i ( x, t ) u ( x, t )
 C0  G0 u ( x, t )  I F ( x, t ) (5)
x t
where R0 , L0 , C0 and G0 are the per-unit-length parameters of transmission lines.
The transmission line is divided into N segments of length x . Similarly, the total solution
time is divided into N segments of length t . To provide the accuracy of the discretization, the
voltage points and current points are interlaced at alternating direction as u1 , u2 , u3 ,…, u N 1 ,
and i1 , i2 , …, iN 1 . Each voltage and adjacent current solution point is separated by x / 2 . In
addition, the time points are also interlaced, and each voltage time point and adjacent current
time point are separated by t / 2 [15-17]. The spatial-time grid of transmission line is shown in
Figure 2.

n+1
voltage
t current

t
n
x

n-1 x

i-1 i i+1
Figure 2. Spatial-time grid of transmission line

The Formula (4) and (5) can be expressed as

uin1  uin i n 1/ 2  i n 1/ 2 i n 1/ 2  i n 1/ 2 V n 1/ 2  VFkn 1/ 2

 L0 i 1/ 2 i 1/ 2  R0 i 1/ 2 i 1/ 2  Fk (6)
x t 2 2

iin1/1/22  iin1/1/22 u n 1  uin u n 1  uin I Fk

n 1
 I Fk
n
(7)
 C0 i  G0 i 
x t 2 2

The transmission line transient analysis iteration formulas based on FDTD are simplified as

x R0 x R0 x n 1/ 2
( L0  x)iin1/1/22  ( L0  x)iin1/1/22  (uin1  uin )  (VFk  VFkn 1/ 2 ) (8)
t 2 t 2 2

x G0 x G0 x n 1 n (9)
(C0  x)uin 1  (C0  x)uin  (iin1/1/22  iin1/1/22 )  ( I Fk  I Fk )
t 2 t 2 2

The initial conditions are

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 Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on
FDTD Method
Jianhui Song, Yanju Liu, Yang Yu

 ix0    ( x) 
 0     (10)
 u x    ( x) 

4. The FDTD convergence and stability analysis

As the FDTD method is based on a set of finite difference equations instead of the solution of the
original electromagnetic field partial differential equations, the solution of differential equations must
be convergence and stability.
By considering the harmonic field situation, the Maxwell curl equations can be written as

f ( x, y, z , t )  f 0 exp( jt ) (11)

The steady state solution is

f
 j f (12)
t

As the first derivative of the left end of the above equation is replaced by the difference
approximation, the above equation becomes

1 1
n n
f 2
f 2
(13)
 j f n
t

f n  f ( x, y, z , nt ) (14)

where, t is the time interval.

As the t is small enough, the value growth factor  is defined as

1
n
f 2
fn
  1 (15)
fn n
2
f
So,

 2  jt  1  0 (16)

The solution of the above formula is

jt t 2
  1 ( ) (17)
2 2

For cable systems, the propagation of the electromagnetic waves is considered as one-dimensional.
Therefore,
2 f  2 f
 2 0 (18)
x 2 v

Considering the solutions of the plane wave, that is

f ( x, t )  f 0 exp[ j (k x x  t )] (19)

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 Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on
FDTD Method
Jianhui Song, Yanju Liu, Yang Yu

Using the finite difference approximation, the second derivative approximation is

2 f f ( x  x)  2 f ( x)  f ( x  x)
 (20)
x 2
(x) 2

By Taking Formula (18) into Formula (17), the follow expression can be obtained

k x
sin 2 ( x )
 2 f exp( jk x x)  2  exp(  jk x x) 2
 f  f (21)
x 2 (x) 2 x 2
( )
2

Therefore, the discrete solution of Formula (17) is

k x x
sin 2 ( )
2  0
2

(22)
x v2
( )2
2

After transformation, Formula (21) can be expressed as

k x x
sin 2 ( )
(
vt 2
) 2  ( t ) 2  1 (23)
2 x 2
( )2
2

The sufficient conditions for any k x is

vt
1 (24)
x

Therefore, the time step must be small enough so that it satisfies the following courant stability
condition

t  x / v (25)

5. Experimental results and analysis

The measurements were performed on RVV 300/300V PVC insulated cable. The parameters of the
cable under test are as follow: cable length l  86.751 m, L0  1.0154 μH/s, C0  24.982 pF/m. The
excitation source is pulse signal and ideal Gaussian signal. The actual measured waveform and the
FDTD simulation waveform of different incident wave are shown in Figure 3. It can be seen from
Figure 3 that the FDTD simulation waveforms are consistent with the actual measured waveform,
which verifies the correctness of the transmission line transient analysis iteration formula studied in
this paper.

262
 Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on
FDTD Method
Jianhui Song, Yanju Liu, Yang Yu

Signal amplitude (V)

Figure 3. Actual measured waveform and the FDTD simulation waveform of different incident wave

Compared with the traditional measurement methods, TDR technology has an advantage of non-
destruction, portability and high-precision, which is an ideal cable length measurement method. TDR is
a very useful measuring technology based on high-speed pulse technology. The cable length measuring
principle is very simple. The test voltage pulse is injected into one end of the cable, and the pulse will
be reflected at the end of the cable. By measuring the time interval between the injection pulse and the
reflection pulse, the cable length can be obtained by assuming the velocity as constant.
To further illustrate the theory of the time domain reflectometry cable length measurement, the
iteration formula is applied to the TDR cable length measurement. From Figure 2 it can be seen that
ideally, the time interval between the injection wave and the reflected wave is the same no mater what
the shape of the excitation signal is launched into the cable under test. That is the excitation signal
shape does not affect the TDR cable length measurement results. When the excitation source is the
pulse signal, the FDTD simulation waveforms are slightly different with the actual measured waveform.
The rising edge of the actual pulse signal is close to the Gaussian waveform and the waveform
becomes asymmetric with the fast rising and slow falling edge because of the attenuation and
dispersion.
Figure 4 is the actual measured waveform and the FDTD simulation waveform of different pulse
width. It can be seen from the picture that ideally, the width of the pulse signal does not affect the cable
length measurement results. As the pulse width is wider, it carries the greater energy. Therefore, it can
measure longer cable length. On the other hand, the pulse width determines the minimum cable length
that can be measured. The solution to this problem is to choose a different pulse width for different
measurement cable length.
5
Actual measured waveform
4 Pulse width : 125ns
Pulse width : 250ns
Signal amplitude (V)

-1
-2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Time ( s ) x 10-7
Figure 4. Actual measured waveform and the FDTD simulation waveform of different pulse width

263
 Numerical Analysis of Transmission Line Telegraph Equation Based on
FDTD Method
Jianhui Song, Yanju Liu, Yang Yu

Figure 5 is the actual measured waveform and the FDTD simulation waveform of different pulse
amplitude. It can be seen from the figure that ideally, the amplitude of the pulse signal does not affect
the cable length measurement results. However, too small amplitude can not work in a noisy
environment. On the other hand, too large amplitude may cause electromagnetic interference (EMI).

Figure 5. Actual measured waveform and the FDTD simulation waveform of different pulse amplitude

6. Conclusions

In order to study the principle of the TDR cable length measurement, the transmission line
transient analysis iteration formula based on the finite difference time domain FDTD is derived.
The iteration formula is applied to the TDR cable length measurement. The impacts of the shape,
width and amplitude of the excitation signal on the cable length measurement are analyzed. The
actual measured and simulation results show that ideally, the shape, width and amplitude of the
excitation signal do not affect the cable length measurement results. However the actual
measured waveforms are slightly different due to the combined effect of the cable attenuation
and dispersion.

7. Acknowledgement

The study is funded by the 2011 Education Department of Liaoning Province (Project
No.:L2011036)

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