Recent Progress in Distributed Fiber Acoustic Sensing with Φ-OTDR

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Sensing Technology
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Distributed fiber acoustic sensing (DAS) provides continuous, real-time spatial detection of disturbances along optical fibers.
• DAS offers advantages like large coverage, high resolution, and environmental adaptability, making it suitable for diverse applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the sensing principle and performance metrics of DAS.
• To present recent research advancements in DAS at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM).
• To review engineering applications and discuss future directions of DAS technology.

Main Methods:

• Exploration of quantitative demodulation techniques for DAS.
• Investigation of methods for interference fading suppression and frequency response enhancement.
• Development of high spatial resolution and distributed multi-dimension localization capabilities.

Main Results:

• Demonstration of advanced DAS techniques including quantitative demodulation and interference suppression.
• Achieved improvements in frequency response and spatial resolution for DAS systems.
• Successful engineering applications of DAS in various fields were summarized.

Conclusions:

• DAS is a versatile technology with significant development potential and broad application prospects.
• Ongoing research at SIOM is pushing the boundaries of DAS capabilities.
• DAS is poised for wider adoption in critical monitoring and detection tasks.