Active fiber-loop method for improved performance assessment of Brillouin OTDR systems

Area of Science:

• Optical Engineering
• Fiber Optics
• Metrology

Background:

• Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (BOTDR) is crucial for distributed fiber sensing.
• Accurate performance assessment of BOTDR devices is essential for reliable measurements.
• Existing methods for BOTDR characterization may have limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a new fiber-optical measurement artifact for assessing BOTDR devices.
• To demonstrate a practical method for validating and benchmarking BOTDR performance.
• To enable simultaneous evaluation of key performance metrics.

Main Methods:

• Development of a modified fiber artifact using a fast optical switch.
• Implementation of a fiber loop configuration to reduce round-trip loss.
• Experimental validation of the artifact's capability for BOTDR characterization.

Main Results:

• The artifact enables detailed characterization of BOTDR devices.
• Simultaneous assessment of distance-dependent spatial resolution and measurement biases was achieved.
• System configuration anomalies in BOTDR interrogators were identified.

Conclusions:

• The proposed fiber-optical artifact offers a practical approach for BOTDR performance validation.
• This method can be extended to other distributed optical fiber sensing modalities.
• The artifact facilitates robust benchmarking of BOTDR device performance.