Hybrid B-OTDR/Φ-OTDR for multi-parameter measurement from a single end of fiber

Abstract

The multi-parameter sensing is in great demand for comprehensive recognition in various application scenarios. We demonstrate a distributed optical fiber sensor (DOFS) for simultaneous vibration and temperature/strain sensing based on the integration of Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (BOTDR) and phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR). A double heterodyne detection configuration is set up to receive the Rayleigh scattering and Brillouin scattering simultaneously, which can enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and reduce the polarization fading noise for the Brillouin signal at the same time. Most components in the setup are multiplexed for the Brillouin and Rayleigh signals. The overall cost is much lower than the summation of the BOTDR and the Φ-OTDR setup. In experiments, the setup is capable of measuring temperature change near the end of the 49.9 km long fiber with 0.381 MHz measurement uncertainty and restore different vibration patterns correctly by demodulating the phase variation of Rayleigh scattering signal, owning a 20 m spatial resolution. The sampling rate of the vibration measurement is 1.8 kHz, and the achieved dynamic strain resolution is 1.235 nɛ/√Hz with 100 Hz vibration.