Theoretical and Experimental Estimation of the Accuracy in Simultaneous Distributed Measurements of Temperatures and Strains in Anisotropic Optical Fibers Using Polarization-Brillouin Reflectometry

Abstract

A model has been constructed for determining the effect of instrumental and calibration errors on the accuracy of a method for strain−temperature discrimination using polarization-Brillouin reflectometry based on measuring the Brillouin frequency shift in two polarization axes of an optical fiber. It is shown that the errors caused by the discrepancy of the calibration coefficients are negligible. The optimal hardware requirements for the reflectometer are determined. The experimental results of spectral scanning at the maximum resolution attainable in this study are in agreement with the results of computer simulation.