A Comprehensive Study of Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry

Abstract

Optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) is a kind of distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS) which has attracted an increasing amount of research attention. The OFDR sensor has a high spatial resolution and large dynamic range, which makes it useful in a large amount of sensing scenarios. In this paper, we will provide a review of the recent advances in OFDR. We introduce the sensing principles and progress for performance improvement of the system. We also cover the applications of OFDR-based sensing system, including sensing of temperature, strain, vibration, pressure, magnetic field, refractive index, radiation, 3D-shape, gas, gas flow rate, and so on.

Keywords

• Distributed optical fiber sensors
• frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW)
• optical fiber sensors
• optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR)
• phase noise compensation
• Rayleigh backscattering