Heaviside revisited: Distortionless signal transmission through lossy media with application to precision clock synchronization

• Introduction of rising exponential shape as a distortion-resistant wave pulse (SD signal) in electrical propagation through lossy media.
• Derivation of distortion-free and constant-velocity properties of the SD signal based on telegrapher's equation of Oliver Heaviside.
• Experimental demonstration of enhanced precision of time-of-flight measurements utilizing SD signals in the e-TDR.
• Design of a precision clock-synchronization procedure based on SD signaling and e-TDR.

A recently discovered non-sinusoidal, non-periodic electrical signal in the form of an exponentially rising pulse achieves distortionless propagation at constant velocity through lossy, passive transmission media. This unique property is derived theoretically in the framework of the telegrapher's equation analyzed by Heaviside and confirmed experimentally in propagation of such a pulse along serially connected sections of telephone cable. The utility of the distortion-free pulse within the field of time-domain reflectometry is demonstrated in precise time-of-flight measurement of the reflected signal, with the prospect of enhancing the accuracy of protocols for synchronization of spatially separated clocks.