A large capacity sensing network with identical weak fiber Bragg gratings multiplexing

Abstract A quasi-distributed optical fiber sensing network with large multiplexing capacity, which is based on identical weak fiber Bragg gratings, is proposed, theoretically analyzed and experimentally studied. The key technique is the demodulation technology named “Optical wavelength time-domain reflection (OWTDR),” which utilizes the optical power variation of reflected sensing signal in both time domain and wavelength domain. The influence of reflectivity of fiber grating, interval between adjacent gratings and transmission loss of delay fiber on the multiplexing capacity of sensing system are discussed. Analyzed results demonstrate that this sensing scheme can effectively increase the multiplexing capacity of sensing system up to 1000, implement multi-point synchronous measurement and reduce the cost of signal demodulation. 9 Identical weak fiber Bragg gratings with the same Bragg wavelength of 1536.651 nm, reflectivity of 6%, bandwidth of 0.07 nm are written in series to investigate the performance of the proposed scheme.