A Cost-Effective Distributed Acoustic Sensor for Engineering Geology

A simple and cost-effective architecture of a distributed acoustic sensor (DAS) or a phase-OTDR for engineering geology is proposed. The architecture is based on the dual-pulse acquisition principle, where the dual probing pulse is formed via an unbalanced Michelson interferometer (MI). The necessary phase shifts between the sub-pulses of the dual-pulse are introduced using a 3 × 3 coupler built into the MI. Laser pulses are generated by direct modulation of the injection current, which obtains optical pulses with a duration of 7 ns. The use of an unbalanced MI for the formation of a dual-pulse reduces the requirements for the coherence of the laser source, as the introduced delay between sub-pulses is compensated in the fiber under test (FUT). Therefore, a laser with a relatively broad spectral linewidth of about 1 GHz can be used. To overcome the fading problem, as well as to ensure the linearity of the DAS response, the averaging of over 16 optical frequencies is used. The performance of the DAS was tested by recording a strong vibration impact on a horizontally buried cable and by the recording of seismic waves in a borehole in the seabed.