Qingwen Liu

Distributed fiber-optic vibration sensing based on phase extraction from time-gated digital OFDR.

A novel distributed fiber vibration sensing technique based on phase extraction from time-gated digital optical frequency domain reflectometry (TGD-OFDR) which can achieve quantitative vibration measurement with high spatial resolution and long measurement range is proposed. A 90 degree optical hybrid is used to extract phase information. By increasing frequency sweeping speed, the influence of environmental phase disturbance on TGD-OFDR is mitigated significantly, which makes phase extraction in our new scheme more reliable than that in conventional OFDR-based method, leading to the realization of long distance quantitative vibration measurement. By using the proposed technique, a distributed vibration sensor that has a measurement range of 40 km, a spatial resolution of 3.5 m, a measurable vibration frequency up to 600 Hz, and a minimal measurable vibration acceleration of 0.08g is demonstrated.

Ultrahigh resolution optical fiber strain sensor using dual Pound–Drever–Hall feedback loops

We present an ultrahigh resolution optical fiber strain sensor with a broad frequency range from quasi-static to several hundred hertz. The sensor consists of a π-phase shifted fiber Bragg grating for strain sensing and a fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer as reference. The laser carrier and sideband are locked to the reference and sensing elements, respectively, via two individual feedback loops, in which the Pound-Drever-Hall technique is employed to generate the error signals. The sampling rate is up to 500 samples/s in the demonstrational experiments, only limited by the updating rate of the frequency counter. The strain resolution exhibits a 1/f characteristic in the bandwidth of 0.01-250 Hz, and is better than 0.01 nϵ at 10 Hz with a dynamic range up to 149 dB. Compared with the traditional static strain sensors, the proposed sensor shows a great improvement in both resolution and sensing bandwidth, and can be a powerful tool for geophysical applications.

Sensing the earth crustal deformation with nano-strain resolution fiber-optic sensors

Crustal deformation measurement with a high resolution on the order of nano-strains in static to low frequency region is required for geophysical research. Optical fiber sensors are very attractive in this research field due to their unique advantages including high resolution, small size and easy deployment. In this paper, a fiber optic strain sensor with nano-strain-resolution and large measurement range for sensing the earth crustal deformation is reported. With this sensor the tide induced crustal deformation and the seismic wave were successfully recorded in field experiments.

Time-gated digital optical frequency domain reflectometry with 1.6-m spatial resolution over entire 110-km range

A novel time-gated digital optical frequency domain reflectometry (TGD-OFDR) technique with high spatial resolution over long measurement range is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. To solve the contradictory between the tuning rate of lightwave frequency, which determines the spatial resolution, and the measurable distance range in traditional OFDR, our proposed scheme sweeps the frequency of probe beam only within a time window, while the local reference remains a frequency-stable continuous lightwave. The frequency-to-distance mapping is digitally realized with equivalent references in data domain. In demonstrational experiments, a 1.6-m spatial resolution is obtained over an entire 110-km long fiber link, proving that the phase noises of the laser source as well as environmental perturbations are well suppressed. Meanwhile, the dynamic range was 26 dB with an average of only 373 measurements. The proposed reflectometry provides a simple-structure and high-performance solution for the applications where both high spatial resolution and long distance range are required.

Long-Range Distributed Vibration Sensing Based on Phase Extraction From Phase-Sensitive OTDR

Distributed fiber-optic vibration sensors based on phase-sensitive optical timedomain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR) have found many applications in various fields. In this paper, we analyze the phase noise of Φ-OTDR, which is the main limiting factor of the measurement range. We found that the laser phase noise and phase extraction error caused by the intensity noise in photodetection contribute to the total phase noise. By introducing a series of auxiliary weak reflection points along the fiber, we develop a phase-noise-compensated Φ-OTDR and realize a long-range distributed vibration sensing based on the phase extraction. Furthermore, a statistical analysis was proposed to maintain the vibration measurement sensitivity along the whole fiber. In the experiment, vibrations at 30 km were measured with a linear response, which confirmed the validity of our proposed system.

10-Times Broadened Fast Optical Frequency Sweeping for High Spatial Resolution OFDR

We demonstrate a method for high spatial resolution OFDR by utilizing the high order modulation sideband. 10-times broadened optical frequency sweeping is achieved. 1.5-cm spatial resolution is obtained with modulation frequency sweeping span of 800 MHz.

High spatial resolution OFDR based on broadened optical frequency sweeping by four-wave-mixing

We demonstrate a method for high spatial resolution optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) by utilizing degenerated four-wave-mixing (FWM) for broadening the frequency sweeping. High order sideband is obtained from an optical comb and is consequently utilized as the pump for the FWM. An idler wavelength is produced after the FWM and 21-times broadened optical frequency sweeping is achieved compared with the radio frequency (RF) sweeping. 0.75-cm spatial resolution is obtained with RF frequency sweeping span of 638.4 MHz.

Phase-detection distributed fiber-optic vibration sensor without fading-noise based on time-gated digital OFDR

For a distributed fiber-optic vibration sensor (DFVS), the vibration signal extracted from the phase of backscattering has a linear response to the applied vibration, and is more attractive than that from the intensity term. However, the large phase noise at a random weak-fading-point seriously limits the sensors credibility. In this paper, a novel phase-detection DFVS is developed, which effectively eliminates the weak-fading-point. The relationship between phase noise and the intensity of backscattering is analyzed, and the inner-pulse frequency-division method and rotated-vector-sum method are introduced to effectively suppress phase noise. In experiments, two simultaneous vibrations along the 35-kilometer-long fiber are clearly detected by phase detection with the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over 26 dB. The spatial resolution approaches 5 m and the vibration response bandwidth is 1.25 kHz.

Sub-Nano-Strain Multiplexed Fiber Optic Sensor Array for Quasi-Static Strain Measurement

This letter presents a high resolution multiplexed strain sensor for quasi-static strain measurement based on π-phase-shifted fiber Bragg gratings (π-PSFBGs). The sensor array is composed by four π-PSFBGs in parallel with different delay lines, and a time-division multiplexing scheme is proposed to interrogate the π-PSFBGs in turn. The Pound-Drever-Hall technique and the sideband interrogation method are employed to improve the resolution and the sampling rate. In the demonstrational experiment, three-channel quasi-static strain sensing is realized with a resolution better than 0.4 n and a sampling rate of 100 samples/s.

Improving the Spatial Resolution of an OFDR Based on Recirculating Frequency Shifter

We demonstrate a novel method for obtaining high spatial resolution optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) utilizing recirculating frequency shifter for broadening the optical frequency sweeping. Twelve times broadened optical frequency sweeping is achieved. We obtain 0.97 cm spatial resolution over 710-m measurement range with modulation frequency sweeping span of 882 MHz. Such a spatial resolution corresponds to a frequency sweeping span of 10.31 GHz. The experimental results indicate that the measurement range can be extended to 10 km, based on the proposed method.