High-speed demodulation system of identical weak FBGs based on FDML wavelength swept laser

An identical weak reflection FBGs demodulation system based on a FDML laser is proposed. The laser is developed to output a continuous wavelength-swept spectrum in the scanning frequency of 120 kHz over a spectral range of more than 10nm at 1.54 μm. Based on this high-speed wavelength-swept light and the optical transmission delay effect, the demodulation system obtains the location and wavelength information of all identical weak FBGs by the reflected spectrum within each scanning cycle. By accessing to a high-speed FPGA processing module, continuous demodulation of 120 kHz is realized. The system breakthroughs the bandwidth of the laser to expand the sensors capacity and greatly improves the demodulation speed of a TDM sensing network. The experiments show the system can distinguish and demodulate the identical weak FBGs and measure the 4 kHz vibration at 120 kHz demodulation speed.