External Modulation Optical Coherent Domain Reflectometry with Long Measurement Range

Abstract

Optical coherent domain reflectometry (OCDR) can achieve a high spatial resolution that is independent of the bandwidth of the receiver, but the measurement range is usually very limited. Here we propose an external modulation OCDR system, in which a pair of linear frequency-modulated pulses generated by one modulator are employed as the probe pulse and the reference, respectively. The spatial resolution is determined by the frequency modulation range of the pulse, and the measurement speed is boosted by orders because the proposed technology can simultaneously diagnose a section of fiber with each pair of pulses, while only a single point can be accessed at a time in typical OCDR. In the demonstrational experiment, a measurement range of up to 50 km is achieved with a spatial resolution of 1.4 m and a measuring time of less than 30 s.

Keywords

• optical fiber sensor
• reflectometry
• coherent detection
• Rayleigh backscattering