Title :
High Sensitivity Distributed Vibration Sensor Based on Polarization-Maintaining Configurations of Phase-OTDR
Author :
Qin, Zengguang ; Zhu, Tao ; Chen, Liang ; Bao, Xiaoyi
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Phys., Univ. of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Abstract :
A system based on all-polarization-maintaining configurations of the phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR) is presented for vibration sensing. Both polarization-induced signal fading and noise are mitigated via polarization-maintaining components. The detectable frequency response is increased to ~2.25 kHz. Moreover, only a straight sensing fiber segment of ~0.13 m instead of several closed fiber loops is needed to sense the vibration event with a spatial resolution of 1 m, which makes it convenient for vibration monitoring in practical applications. The maximum distance between the sensing fiber and vibration event can be 18 cm.
Keywords :
fibre optic sensors; optical time-domain reflectometry; vibration measurement; all-polarization-maintaining configurations; distributed vibration sensor; fiber loops; frequency response; phase-OTDR; phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry; polarization-induced signal fading; straight sensing fiber segment; vibration monitoring; vibration sensing; Optical fiber polarization; Optical fiber sensors; Optical fiber testing; Signal to noise ratio; Vibrations; Distributed optical fiber sensor; Rayleigh scattering; phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR); polarization; vibration;
Journal_Title :
Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LPT.2011.2157337
