63 km BOFDA for Temperature and Strain Monitoring

Abstract

We demonstrate (and are the first to do so) 63 km Brillouin Optical Frequency-Domain Analysis (BOFDA) for temperature and strain monitoring using a 100 km fiber loop. The use of BOFDA for long-range applications can be considered a novel approach, as previous investigations focused on the utilization of Brillouin Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry and Analysis (BOTDR and BOTDA, respectively). At 51.7 km, a 100 m hotspot (37 ∘ C) was detected without using distributed Raman amplification or image processing.

Keywords

• distributed sensing
• stimulated Brillouin scattering
• fiber optics sensors