High-sensing-resolution distributed hot spot detection system implemented by a relaxed pulsewidth

Reliable sensing and accurate location of a weak and small hot spot are critical for applications in industrial infrastructure monitoring. We propose and experimentally demonstrate a practical and reliable distributed hot spot detection method using ultra-weak fiber Bragg gratings (UWFBGs) array and optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR) based interrogator. To reliably detect the hot spots, the grating spacing of the sensor array is decreased to a similar size of the hot spot. All UWFBGs within a fiber section (FS) are considered as one sensing element, and the wavelength-division multiplexing technique is introduced to reduce crosstalk between adjacent FSs. To retrieve the sensing information, the proposed FS spectrum interrogation method based on OTDR technology is numerically analyzed and experimentally demonstrated. The interrogator exploits the reflection spectrum of each FS instead of each grating, enabling the low-speed hardware implementation of the whole demodulation method. Experimental results show that the expected hot spot can be successfully detected with a sensing resolution of 10 cm and a location resolution of 1 m over a range of 2 km by exploiting 10-ns pulsewidth. Besides, the temperature measurement can be demonstrated with a temperature sensing precision of ± 1°C and a measurement time of 1.5 s, which are meaningful for the early warning of centimeters-sized fire source in some oil and gas pipelines monitoring applications.