Distributed optical fiber sensing based on backward Brillouin scattering has been widely developed during the last decade. Making use of stimulated Brillouin scattering, Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) is considered one of the most performing distributed sensing techniques existing today for long range and quasi-static monitoring of variables like temperature and strain. This has enabled the monitoring of assets over tens of kilometers (even over more than 100 km with advanced configurations and techniques) with typical spatial resolutions of a few meters (typically below 5 m). This paper reviews the fundamentals of BOTDA sensing, its main limitations (essentially imposed by nonlinear effects in the sensing fiber), and advanced methods to enhance the sensing performance. While the performance is ultimately determined by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the measurements, some of the most relevant methods for SNR enhancement are here reviewed. In particular, and based on recent developments, optimized pulse coding and hybrid optical amplification approaches, specially designed for ultra-long-range BOTDA sensing, are discussed.
A novel BOTDA method based on differential ∏-phase-shift-pulse pair is proposed for narrowing the Brillouin gain spectrum. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that the proposal could achieve 17 MHz Brillouin gain spectrum linewidth with a fixed spatial resolution of 2.5 m. The Brillouin gain spectrum linewidth is 3 times narrower than that obtained using conventional single-pulse based BOTDA method with same spatial resolution, resulting in √3 times frequency accuracy improvement. Furthermore, the sharper rising/falling edge of the Brillouin frequency shift profile resulting from the narrowed Brillouin gain spectrum could obtain more precise temperature/strain information along the fiber.
The robustness of the BOTDA method based on dual-tone probe wave with fixed frequency separation is studied. It is verified that when the sensing fiber consists of two fiber segments with large Brillouin frequency shift difference (>100 MHz), the non-local effect would take place in the front fiber segment, which gives rise to frequency error on the determination of hotspot. Aiming at solving this problem, both the upper and lower probe sidebands are acquired simultaneously by using two photodiodes, and the average between the Brillouin gain and loss spectrum is calculated to eliminate the detrimental impact of the non-local effect.
KEYWORDS: Double sideband modulation, Fiber optics sensors, Spatial resolution, Acoustics, Photodetectors, Signal to noise ratio, Single mode fibers, Temperature metrology, Signal detection, Optical engineering
A configuration based on phase difference on a double-sideband pump wave is proposed to detect the differential variation of temperature or strain in single-mode optical fibers. In our configuration, a probe wave only experiences a differential Brillouin gain contributed by the perturbation of temperature or strain in the sensing fiber. As a result, the power limitation of the probe wave can be alleviated and the photodetector in our configuration does not easily become saturated in the case of a longer sensing range. The spatial resolution is determined by the duration of the phase difference on the two sidebands and the signal-to-noise of our system is nearly twice as high as that of a differential pulse-width pair Brillouin optical time domain analysis sensor since a π-phase shift on the pump wave is employed. The properties and performances of our method are also theoretically derived and experimentally validated.
We propose and demonstrate a Brillouin distributed fiber sensor with high spatial resolution using four-section-brightpulse, in which the second section of the pump pulse acts as sensing pulse, while the third section is used to compensate the second echo. A general analytical model of this kind of technique is presented, which provides a full physical insight into the Brillouin interaction occurring in this configuration. A computing method to optimize the parameters in the system is also given. This simple but useful proposal is experimentally validated that can distinguish the short section with small temperature/strain change.
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