Fully distributed optical fiber strain sensor with 10-12 ε/√Hz sensitivity

Advanced optical fiber reflectometry techniques enable spatially distributed measurements of true relative deformations over the length of a conventional optical fiber cable. This methodology is attractive for many applications ranging from intrusion monitoring to seismology. However, accurate quant...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pereira da Costa, Luis Duarte|||0000-0001-5254-0605, Fidalgo Martins, Hugo|||0000-0003-3927-8125, Martín López, Sonia|||0000-0001-5203-6206, Fernández Ruiz, María Del Rosario|||0000-0003-3561-2405, González Herráez, Miguel|||0000-0003-2555-2971
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/59860
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/59860
https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2019.2904560
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Chirp modulation
Optical fiber applications
Optical time domain reflectometry
Phase noise
Remote sensing
Strain measurements
Vibration measurements
Electrónica
Electronics
Descripción
Sumario:Advanced optical fiber reflectometry techniques enable spatially distributed measurements of true relative deformations over the length of a conventional optical fiber cable. This methodology is attractive for many applications ranging from intrusion monitoring to seismology. However, accurate quantification of the applied stimulus in general implies sophisticated implementations with poor sensitivity performance. Coherent reflectometry using chirped pulses is an appealing solution, as it provides fast dynamic strain measurements with a simple experimental deployment. Here, we analyze for the first time to our knowledge the lower performance bounds of this technique as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio of the acquired optical signal. We demonstrate that implementations realized so far have been limited by the temporal sampling used instead of the optical signal quality. Through post-processing interpolation approaches, we reach the performance limit for a given set of signal parameters, attaining unprecedented strain sensitivities (?10?12epsilon/?Hz) for km-length distributed sensors in conventional single-mode fibers.