High speed random accessibility of Brillouin optical correlation domain analysis with time division pump-probe generation scheme

High speed random accessibility to arbitrary multiple points along an optical fiber is realized by a Brillouin Optical Correlation Domain Analysis (BOCDA) system with a time-division pump-probe generation scheme. In the BOCDA system, correlation between continuous pump and probe lightwave is synthesized by frequency modulation at a laser source, so that the stimulated Brillouin scattering takes place only at one selected point along an optical fiber where the two lightwaves are highly correlated. By sweeping the correlation position with changing the modulation parameters, distributed sensing can be realized by the system, but an important feature of the BOCDA system is random accessibility to an arbitrary point to be measured. Another feature of the BOCDA is high speed measurement capability, because the system is driven by the continuous lightwave. In this paper, the two features of the BOCDA, the random accessibility and the high speed measurement capability, are combined by introducing a time-division pump probe generation scheme, in which the Brillouin spectrum shape can be measured in a higher speed than the basic BOCDA . Simultaneous dynamic strain measurement at four points selected arbitrarily along an optical fiber is demonstrated with a total sampling rate of 200 samples/s.

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