Fault monitoring in passive optical network using code division multiplex-based dual-OTDR traces comparison

Abstract

A dual optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) system, which employs two different continuous waves at the optical line terminal and a pair of fiber Bragg gratings at the end of each optical network unit, is proposed in a time-division multiplexing passive optical network (PON). The proposed scheme accomplishes the fiber fault monitoring by comparing the different wavelength's testing curves. Complete complementary code is utilized to measure multiple wavelength signals simultaneously with only one receiver and to improve the dynamic range of this system. The PON system consisting of 20 km feeding fiber and a 1:16 splitter is investigated by the experiments. The experimental results show that the faulty branch can be successfully identified by using our scheme. What is more, we also demonstrate that our scheme can be applied to the multi-stage PON.