Sensors (Oct 2024)

Deep Integration Between Polarimetric Forward-Transmission Fiber-Optic Communication and Distributed Sensing Systems

  • George Y. Chen,
  • Ming Chen,
  • Xing Rao,
  • Shangwei Dai,
  • Runlong Zhu,
  • Guoqiang Liu,
  • Junhong Lu,
  • Hanjie Liu,
  • Yiping Wang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/s24216778
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24, no. 21
p. 6778

Abstract

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The structural health of fiber-optic communication networks has become increasingly important due to their widespread deployment and reliance in interconnected cities. We demonstrate a smart upgrade of a communication system employing a dual-polarization-state polarization shift keying (2-PolSK) modulation format to enable distributed vibration monitoring. Sensing can be conducted without hardware changes or occupying additional communication bandwidth. Experimental results demonstrate that forward transmission-based distributed vibration sensing can coexist with PolSK data transmission without significant deterioration in performance. This proof-of-concept study achieved a sensitivity of 0.4141 μV/με with a limit of detection (LoD) of 563 pε/Hz1/2@100 Hz. The single-span sensing distance can reach up to 121 km (no optical amplification) with a positioning accuracy as small as 874 m. The transmission rate is 300 Mb/s, the QdB is 16.78 dB, and the corresponding BER is 5.202 × 10−12. For demonstration purposes, the tested vibration frequency range is between 100 and 200 Hz.

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