In this paper, the most recent progress as well as challenges of distributed optical fiber sensing (DOFS) in industrial applications is discussed. Compared to the vast market of sensors used to measure strain or temperature, the success of distributed optical fiber sensing (DOFS) at the industrial level is very limited, at best. One of the reasons for this lack of the wider acceptance is the mismatch between the commercially available systems and actual industrial requirements, especially for the spatial resolution and precision. These requirements are organized and clarified in the paper. It also describes the hybrid Brillouin-Rayleigh system, which exhibits capabilities surpassing those of strain gauges. The principles of the system are illustrated considering the fiber calibration methodology. Formulas required for determining strain, temperature, and hydro-pressure are derived and discussed. Finally, the examples of applications are presented.
We propose a novel method to improve the spatial resolution of Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (BOTDR), referred to as synthetic BOTDR (S-BOTDR), and experimentally verify the resolution improvements. Due to the uncertainty relation between position and frequency, the spatial resolution of a conventional BOTDR system has been limited to about one meter. In S-BOTDR, a synthetic spectrum is obtained by combining four Brillouin spectrums measured with different composite pump lights and different composite low-pass filters. We mathematically show that the resolution limit, in principle, for conventional BOTDR can be surpassed by S-BOTDR and experimentally prove that S-BOTDR attained a 10-cm spatial resolution. To the best of our knowledge, this has never been achieved or reported.
The paper reports results of the long distance (25 km range) distributed optical fiber sensing by means of Tunable Wavelength Coherent Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (TW-COTDR) method. The tests were designed to verify the accuracy and repeatability of the method in long distance measurements, as well as compatibility with various optical fiber types. Results demonstrate the capability of the method to detect strain or temperature changes over long distances. This proposed method is compared to Brillouin sensing techniques, into the same fibers. Unlike the Brillouin-based methods, measurement uncertainty does not increase with increasing distance. We demonstrated 0.16°C uncertainty at 21km.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.