Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of vibration on signal reflection (S11) in aerospace data transmission line (ADTL) and commercial data transmission line (DTL) connectors for their alternative use as vibration sensors. The impact of vibration on the S11 signal was investigated on five ADTL and four DTL connectors at six vibration frequencies (20 Hz, 40 Hz, 80 Hz, 160 Hz, 320 Hz, and 640 Hz) and four vibration accelerations (0.5G, 1 G, 2 G, and 4G). The experiment was conducted using a split-plot design with a cable type assigned as the main-plot factor, with vibration frequency and acceleration as subplot factors. The S11 response follows a complex exponential form of cosine over the investigated vibration frequency and vibration acceleration ranges. The S11 magnitude increases rapidly up to ∼80 Hz vibration frequency, increases gradually from ∼80 Hz to 320 Hz, and becomes flat above ∼320 Hz. The higher the vibration acceleration, the higher the S11 magnitude—except for certain connectors that possibly entered resonance at specific acceleration levels, where S11 was the highest. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that cable connector type, vibration frequency, acceleration ranges, and their two-way and three-way interactions exert significant effects on signal reflection. Connector type and vibration acceleration exhibit the highest effect. Tukey's test indicated that small variations in S11 means across all conditions do not distort signal transmission, indicating the potential of using S11 for vibration sensing. A third-order polynomial regression model achieves coefficients of determination, R2 = 0.88. In contrast, the machine learning gradient boosting regression model improved R2 to 0.94, suggesting superior predictive accuracy.

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Second Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Comments

Missouri University of Science and Technology, Grant None

Keywords and Phrases

analysis of variance-ANOVA; data transmission lines-coaxial cable; non-destructive evaluation; regression analysis; signal reflection (S11); split-plot design; vibration sensing

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1361-6501; 0957-0233

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2026 IOP Publishing, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jun 2026

Download

Full Text Link

Share

 
COinS