Correction for Dispersion in Waveguide Media for Improved Resolution of Time-Domain Analysis of Localized Impairments

A method for linearizing the phase of reflections within a dispersive RF waveguide is proposed, offering significant resolution improvement in time-domain analysis. Phase data of a localized reflection is read from a Touchstone file, fit to the known waveguide dispersion equation, linearized to a lightspeed guide velocity, and written to a new corrected Touchstone file. Time domain analysis of the linearized file is then done by loading it into vector network analyzer software for viewing. Alternatively, it could be analyzed with the Sci-kit Python package. The method is demonstrated on artificially created impairments in a waveguide and shown to nearly double the resolution of the time-domain analysis, allowing for more accurate and reliable detection of the impairment.