Long-range Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensor employing pulse coding techniques

Soto, Marcelo A.; Bolognini, G.; Pasquale, F. Di; Thévenaz, Luc

doi:10.1088/0957-0233/21/9/094024

Cited by 54 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…[18,19]), bases its principle on coding the pump wave with a known pulse sequence. The simplest form of coding that has been widely demonstrated is the simplex coding.…”

Section: B Pulse Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limits of BOTDA Range Extension Techniques

et al. 2016

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Abstract-Brillouin-based temperature and strain sensors have attracted great attention of both the academic and industrial sectors in the past few decades due to their ability to perform distributed measurements. Particularly, Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA) systems have been applied in many different scenarios, proving particularly useful in those requiring especially wide coverage ranging extremely long distances, such as in civil structure monitoring, energy transportation or environmental applications. The extension of the measuring range in these sensors has therefore become one of the main areas of research and development around BOTDA. To do so, it is necessary to increase the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the retrieved signal. So far, several techniques have been applied in order to achieve this goal, such as pre-amplification before detection, pulse coding or Raman amplification. Here, we analyze these techniques in terms of their performance limits and provide guidelines that can assist in finding out which is the best configuration to break current range limitations. Our analysis is based on physical arguments as well as current literature results.Index Terms-Brillouin scattering, distributed optic fiber sensing, distributed Raman scattering, optical fibers, optical pulse coding. I. INTRODUCTIONMONG the different available techniques to perform distributed measurements of strain and temperature, Brillouin Optical Time-Domain Analysis (BOTDA) [1,2] is presently recognized as one of the most consolidated. This fiber sensing technology is widely used in different application domains (civil engineering, pipelines, fire detection, etc.). BOTDA technology finds its root on the non-linear optical effect occurring in optical fibers and called Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) [3]. SBS is an acousto-optic process that manifests as a narrowband amplification of a probe beam when an intense coherent pump light beam is introduced through the opposite end of a single-mode fiber. The distributed feature is provided to the BOTDA by pulsing the pump wave and analyzing the retrieved probe wave as function of the time-of-flight of the pump pulse within the fiber, as depicted in Fig.1.Range and resolution are two of the most important features of these systems, which are normally limited to 20-30 km with 1-2 meter resolution in standard systems [4]. Attenuation, an intrinsic fiber feature, is the limiting factor in terms of range as it reduces the intensity of the signals within the fiber, therefore decreasing the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) as the monitored distance increases. Resolution, which is set by the spatial length of the employed pump pulses, is restricted by the associated issues when the pulse duration is reduced. First, a spectral broadening will manifest on the retrieved wave (leading to a higher uncertainty) and also a shorter interaction length will be obtained among the pump and probe wave, leading to a corresponding SNR decrease. Both factors lead to a non-proportional increase of ...

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“…[18,19]), bases its principle on coding the pump wave with a known pulse sequence. The simplest form of coding that has been widely demonstrated is the simplex coding.…”

Section: B Pulse Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limits of BOTDA Range Extension Techniques

et al. 2016

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“…Right: Comparison of the Brillouin gain spectrum obtained at 50 km distance with and without pulse coding, using an equivalent number of launched sequences (N coded sequences vs N-averaged single pulse sequence), i.e. under equivalent acquisition time conditions [12].…”

Section: Enhanced Response Using Pulse Coding Sequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The solution to increase the activating energy is to spread the energy over several pulses by forming a sequence which can be identified to a binary word: a "1" corresponds to the pulse "on" and a "0" to the pulse "off", as shown in Fig.1. Instead of averaging N temporal traces obtained by an isolated pulse, N non-averaged traces are acquired, each with a different bit sequence arrangement [4,12]. Then by a linear combination of all traces a trace equivalent to a N-times averaged single-pulse trace is obtained, but with an equivalent pulse energy N/2 times larger, since the sequences nominally contain the same number of 0 and 1.…”

Section: Enhanced Response Using Pulse Coding Sequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different types of code sequences can be implemented, the simplest being the Simplex code [12,13], while higher SNR can be obtained using more sophisticated codes, such as the bipolar Golay code -where "-1" and "+1" elements can be practically realized by pulses inducing Brillouin loss and gain processes, respectively [14] -or the colored codes, in which each pulse has a different optical frequency [15].…”

Section: Enhanced Response Using Pulse Coding Sequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Novel Concepts and Recent Progress in Distributed Optical Fiber Sensing

Thévenaz¹,

Soto²

2016

Optical Fiber Communication Conference

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“…They have become the most favorable and prominent fiber sensing system, with recent progresses towards centimeter spatial resolution [1] and over an extended distance range reaching 100 km recently [2][3][4]. Effects having a negligible impact on short distances build up and become extremely detrimental over an extended distance range.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of pulse depletion in a Brillouin optical time-domain analysis system

Thévenaz¹,

Mafang²,

Lin³

2013

Opt. Express

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170

142

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Abstract:Energy transfer between the interacting waves in a distributed Brillouin sensor can result in a distorted measurement of the local Brillouin gain spectrum, leading to systematic errors. It is demonstrated that this depletion effect can be precisely modelled. This has been validated by experimental tests in an excellent quantitative agreement. Strict guidelines can be enunciated from the model to make the impact of depletion negligible, for any type and any length of fiber. Gonzalez-Herraez, "Brillouin optical time-domain analysis assisted by second-order Raman amplification," Opt. Express 18(18), 18769-18778 (2010). 13. Y. Dong, L. Chen, and X. Bao, "System optimization of a long-range Brillouin-loss-based distributed fiber sensor," Appl. Opt. 49(27), 5020-5025 (2010). 14. M. Niklès, L. Thévenaz, and P. A. Robert, "Simple distributed fiber sensor based on Brillouin gain spectrum analysis," Opt. Lett. 21(10), 758-760 (1996). 15. S. Diaz, S. Mafang-Foaleng, M. Lopez-Amo, and L. Thevenaz, "A high-performance optical time-domain Brillouin distributed fiber sensor," IEEE Sens. J. 8(7), 1268-1272 (2008

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Long-range Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensor employing pulse coding techniques

Cited by 54 publications

References 14 publications

Limits of BOTDA Range Extension Techniques

Limits of BOTDA Range Extension Techniques

Novel Concepts and Recent Progress in Distributed Optical Fiber Sensing

Effect of pulse depletion in a Brillouin optical time-domain analysis system

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