Strain-induced vibration and temperature sensing BOTDA system combined frequency sweeping and slope-assisted techniques

Opt Express. 2016 Jun 13;24(12):13610-20. doi: 10.1364/OE.24.013610.

Abstract

A BOTDA sensing scheme combined frequency sweeping and slope-assisted techniques is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for simultaneously temperature and strain-induced vibration sensing. In this scheme, during sweeping Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS) for temperature measurement, we simultaneously perform FFT to the time-domain traces whose probe-pump frequency difference (PPFD) is within the FWHM of the BGS at each position of fiber, and the location and the frequency of the strain-induced vibration event can be acquired based on SA-BOTDA technique. In this way, the vibration can be continuously measured at each selected working frequency point during the BGS scanning process and multiple measurements of vibration event can be completed in one whole BGS scanning process. Meanwhile, double sidebands probe method is employed to reduce the nonlocal effects. In our experiment, a temperature event and two vibration events with the frequency of 7.00Hz or 10.00Hz are simultaneously measured near the end of 10.6km long sensing fiber in a traditional BOTDA system. The system shows 1.2°C temperature accuracy and 0.67Hz frequency resolution, as well as a 3m spatial resolution. The proposed method may find some potential applications where both the strain-induced vibration frequency and temperature are the diagnostic objects.