Optical Time Domain Reflectometer Research Articles

Sparse representation-based noise reduction for BOTDR monitoring signals in foundation pit anchor cables

Abstract In foundation pit monitoring, the Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometer (BOTDR) system typically has a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To solve this problem, a BOTDR signal noise-suppression method based on sparse representation is proposed in this paper. The initial dictionary is constructed from the eigenvectors of the normalized graph Laplace matrix, and K-SVD and OMP algorithms are combined to update the dictionary and coefficient matrix to sparsely represent the essential characteristics of the BOTDR signal, filtering out random noise lacking sufficient similarity data and improving the quality of the reconstructed signal. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, a BOTDR temperature-sensing experimental system was designed and used to test the denoising performance of the sparse representation algorithm quantitatively. The experimental results showed that the average SNR of the algorithm on six temperature levels was 27.4%, 15.4%, 13.1%, and 17.9% higher than that of WDD, EMT, EMD, and the raw signals, respectively. The average sample entropy (SE) was 24.4%, 16.0%, 15.4%, and 47.9% lower than that of WDD, EMT, EMD, and the raw signals, respectively. Additionally, the proposed Laplace-based dictionary outperformed the DCT dictionary. Finally, the monitoring project of the Beijing Stomatological Hospital was used as a test site. The sparse representation algorithm was used to conduct noise reduction experiments on the on-site anchor cable fiber optic monitoring signals. The average signal SE decrease of monitoring signals at the site reached 45.2%. This study provides an effective signal denoising method for the application of BOTDR technology in foundation pit monitoring.

Harmonic analysis of phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer

This study innovatively proposes a method of using harmonics to mitigate the influence of fading noise in Phase-Sensitive Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer (Φ-OTDR). Numerical modeling was conducted to investigate the behavior of the Φ-OTDR. A section optical fiber is coiled around a PZT (piezoelectric transducer). By applying a signal to the PZT, it emulates an external vibration. The response of the simulated vibration was extracted using phase demodulation algorithm. In the response spectrum of the vibration, the fundamental frequency may be submerged because of the fading noise, causing the useful information to be obscured. However, the region impacted by fading noise in the fundamental frequency is unaffected in certain harmonic components. Thus, information from the harmonics can be used to compensate for the missing information in the fundamental frequency. By analyzing multiple harmonic components, the accuracy of vibration detection and localization can be improved. Experiment was performed to corroborate the findings, and the results demonstrated good consistency with the simulated data. Both the simulation and the experiment proved that considering harmonics can enhance the measurement accuracy of Φ-OTDR. This discovery provides new insights and methods for the application of Φ-OTDR.

Experimental demonstration on the proactive detection of fiber tapping in optical chaos communication.

Optical chaos communication has a physical-layer security advantage but defends passively against a malicious attack. Here, we conduct a proof-of-concept experiment of detecting the attack proactively by observing performance degradation in optical chaos communication tapped with fiber bending. Influences of the curvature radius of the bent fiber on a chaos synchronization coefficient and bit error rate are investigated. Results show that the synchronization coefficient decreases from 0.958 to 0.904 and the bit error rate increases from 1.31 × 10-4 to 1.73 × 10-3 under a curvature radius of 10 mm, revealing the attack. Bending fiber to this extent leads to a power loss of 1.81%, which is difficult to detect by the optical time-domain reflectometer but causes significant interference to chaos communication due to the concurrent change in the light polarization, jointly decreasing the effective optical injection strength for yielding chaos synchronization.

Research on fiber OTDR signal recognition and classification based on the ViT model

In the field of event recognition for phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (-OTDR), convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been the mainstream tool. However, Transformer models, with their self-attention mechanism, have provided a new perspective for image recognition tasks. This paper proposes a -OTDR event recognition method based on the Transformer model and experimentally demonstrates its significant advantages over CNNs. The method utilizes an attention-based feature extraction approach to recognize distributed fiber optic sensing signals in a phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (-OTDR). In perimeter defense applications, various interferences and noise severely affect the recognition of -OTDR sensing signals, leading to false alarms, making accurate signal recognition both challenging and necessary. Extracting signal features and using machine learning classification models to recognize signals has been a research hotspot in recent years. The effectiveness of feature extraction is crucial to classification performance. This project introduces a temporal-spatial dual attention mechanism into the feature extraction of fiber optic sensing signals to improve the accuracy and robustness of signal recognition.

Lightning Location Method Using Orthogonal Coded Polarization Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer in Optical Fiber Transmission

Lightning strike is one of the main factors affecting power transmission lines and may lead to broken strands and damage of transmission lines, resulting in abnormal power supply. To improve the accuracy of lightning location, this paper presents a polarization optical time-domain reflectometer (POTDR) lightning location method based on orthogonal coding technology. The lightning strike point can be located by detecting the state of polarization (SOP) mutation of Rayleigh backscattering in the POTDR system. The orthogonal coding technology is used to improve the distance and accuracy of POTDR lightning location. Through calculation and simulation analysis, the location accuracy is significantly improved at the same sensing distance compared with the ordinary POTDR lightning location method. The lightning strike location error can be limited to 200 m in 20 km sensing distance which meets the actual engineering needs. The results of this paper are important to improve the operation and maintenance efficiency of transmission lines and reduce maintenance costs in the power industry.

Analysis of Field Trial Results for Excavation-Activities Monitoring with φ-OTDR.

Underground telecommunication cables are highly susceptible to damage from excavation activities. Preventing accidental damage to underground telecommunication cables is critical and necessary. In this study, we present field trial results of monitoring excavation activities near underground fiber cables using an intensity-based phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (φ-OTDR). The reasons for choosing intensity-based φ-OTDR for excavation monitoring are presented and analyzed. The vibration signals generated by four typical individual excavation events, i.e., cutting, hammering, digging, and tamping at five different field trial sites, as well as five different mixed events in the fifth field trial site were investigated. The findings indicate that various types of events can generate vibration signals with different features. Typically, fundamental peak frequencies of cutting, hammering and tamping events ranged from 30 to 40 Hz, 11 to 15 Hz, and 30 to 40 Hz, respectively. Digging events, on the other hand, presented a broadband frequency spectrum without a distinct peak frequency. Moreover, due to differences in environmental conditions, even identical excavation events conducted with the same machine may also generate vibration signals with different characteristics. The diverse field trial results presented offer valuable insights for both research and the practical implementation of excavation monitoring techniques for underground cables.

An improved denoising method for [formula omitted]-OTDR signal based on the combination of temporal local GMCC and ICEEMDAN-WT

A noise reduction method based on the combination of improved complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise and temporal local generalized maximum cross-correlation entropy and wavelet threshold (ICEEMDAN-TLGMCC-WT) is proposed to improve the noise rejection ratio (NRR) of phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (φ-OTDR) system signals. Firstly, the principle of the proposed ICEEMDAN-TLGMCC-WT denoising method is introduced. On this basis, experiments are carried out to verify the feasibility of the noise reduction algorithm for non-stationary signals. and the results demonstrate that the vibration event can be detected with an improved average NRR of 72.18 dB and a root mean square error (RMSE) 0.017 within 5 km sensing distance by employing the ICEEMDAN-TLGMCC-WT denoising method, which confirm the effectiveness of proposed scheme for the performance improvement of φ-OTDR system.

A novel single mode fiber optic temperature sensor combined with the FLRDS technique

A single mode optical fiber loop was employed as a temperature sensor to observe changes in optical loss regarding to ringdown time (RDT) by high sensitive the fiber loop ringdown spectroscopy (FLRDS) technique which has real-time and fast response measurement capability due to allowing trapped light pulse multiple interactions with the measurands. Two different fiber loops of 45 ± 5 m and 120 ± 5 m lengths were embedded one by one into a copper, circular and closed housing. Continuous monitoring of RDTs was carried out by changing the temperature in the range of 25–200 °C with the steps of 25 °C for the first time by using bare fiber without any modification as a temperature sensor. The FLRDS system for temperature sensing has simple design without extra components such as an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR), long-period fiber grating (LPFG) or fiber Bragg grating (FBG) as sensorhead. The FLRDS system was diligently optimized to achieve the lowest baseline as %0.49. Since the RDT of the FLRDS system was changed due to the thermal expansion of the fiber, continuous monitoring of the temperature was the first time recorded by utilizing this kind of FLRDS temperature sensor. These kind of FLRDS temperature sensors have high potential to be employed in mining, nuclear facilities, railways, underwater structures, biomedical, medicine, structural health monitoring, transportation and communication applications with simple system setup, lower cost, higher sensitivity, portability, real-time and continuous monitoring for early detection.

A hand-crafted φ-OTDR event recognition method based on space-temporal graph and morphological object detection

In the long-range pipeline monitoring application of Fiber Optic Distributed Vibration Sensor (FODVS), instantaneous vibration event with high energy generates a pair of invert-V signature in the space-temporal graph, providing clear characteristic for event recognition. This paper proposed an event recognition method utilizing FODVS and hand-crafted morphological object detection algorithm. Phase-sensitive Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (φ-OTDR) was employed as the distributed sensor to collect the real field space-temporal graph data containing invert-V signature. Bandpass filter and Gaussian blur were utilized to suppress random noise and enhance the invert-V signature, then a hand-crafted morphological object detection method was proposed to recognize the invert-V pattern. The proposed method was proved to be able to accurately capture the invert-V signature in the space-temporal graph. This paper provided a concept-proof preliminary demonstration on the hand-crafted FODVS event recognition scheme for pursuing model with good interpretability and strong adaptability to varied environments.

Distributed vibration and temperature sensing system by multiplexed fiber scattering spectra

A new, to the best of our knowledge, distributed optical fiber vibration and temperature hybrid sensing system is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The proposed system only employs two signal channels, which is more compact and practical. Based on the structure of the optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR), the Rayleigh scattering light and the Raman anti-Stokes scattering light is extracted for vibration and temperature sensing, respectively. For vibration sensing, a new differential location algorithm based on polarization state analysis of the Rayleigh scattering light is proposed to locate the vibration events. It first rectifies the original OTDR traces by fiber attenuation compensation to make each position in it with the same pulse power level. And then, by difference of adjacent traces and threshold discrimination, the vibration positions are identified and located. For temperature sensing, a temperature calibration unit and algorithm are adopted to dynamically correct the trace data and reduce the temperature measurement error caused by the instability of the pulse laser source. The experiment is conducted with a fiber range of about 12 km and laser pulse width of 60 ns, and the experimental results show that the maximum error range for temperature measurement is −0.7∘C to 1.3°C, with a root mean square (RMS) error of 0.85°C in the entire temperature measurement range. Additionally, the spatial resolution (SR) for both vibration and temperature sensing is 6 m.

Phase unwrapping error identification and suppression method in φ-OTDR systems based on PELT-VMD-ARIMA

In phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (φ-OTDR) systems, phase unwrapping errors can distort vibration information. To address this issue, a phase unwrapping error identification and suppression method combining pruned exact linear time (PELT) changepoint detection, variational mode decomposition (VMD), and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models, termed PELT-VMD-ARIMA, is proposed. Firstly, the principle of the proposed method is introduced, and its effectiveness is verified through a series of numerical simulation experiments. Next, piezoelectric transducers (PZTs) are employed as seismic sources in experiments involving single-frequency and chirp signals. Compared to the mean-shift method, the proposed method reduces the average root mean square error (RMSE) by 70.36% within 2δ range around the changepoints. Finally, the proposed method was validated through an active source seismic application. The results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method in identifying and suppressing phase unwrapping errors, thereby enhancing signal quality. This method enhances the vibration recognition capability of φ-OTDR systems, which facilitates precise distributed acoustic sensing applications.

An SNR Enhancement Method for Φ-OTDR Vibration Signals Based on the PCA-VSS-NLMS Algorithm.

To improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of vibration signals in a phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (Φ-OTDR) system, a principal component analysis variable step-size normalized least mean square (PCA-VSS-NLMS) denoising method was proposed in this study. First, the mathematical principle of the PCA-VSS-NLMS algorithm was constructed. This algorithm can adjust the input signal to achieve the best filter effect. Second, the effectiveness of the algorithm was verified via simulation, and the simulation results show that compared with the wavelet denoising (WD), Wiener filtering, variational mode decomposition (VMD), and variable step-size normalized least mean square (VSS-NLMS) algorithms, the PCA-VSS-NLMS algorithm can improve the SNR to 30.68 dB when the initial SNR is -1.23 dB. Finally, the PCA-VSS-NLMS algorithm was embedded into the built Φ-OTDR system, an 11.22 km fiber was measured, and PZT was added at 10.19-10.24 km to impose multiple sets of fixed-frequency disturbances. The experimental results show that the SNR of the vibration signal is 8.77 dB at 100 Hz and 0.07 s, and the SNR is improved to 26.17 dB after PCA-VSS-NLMS filtering; thus, the SNR is improved by 17.40 dB. This method can improve the SNR of the system's position information without the need to change the existing hardware conditions, and it provides a new scheme for the detection and recognition of long-distance vibration signals.

Mixed event separation and identification based on a convolutional neural network trained with the domain transfer method for a φ-OTDR sensing system.

In phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometer (φ-OTDR) based distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), correct identification of event types is challenging in complex environments where multiple events happen simultaneously. In this study, we have proposed a convolutional neural network (CNN) with a separation module and an identification module to simultaneously separate a mixed event into individual single-event components and identify each type of component contained in the mixed event. The domain transfer method is used in the training, fine-tuning, and testing of the proposed CNN, which saves 94% of the workload for massive DAS data collection and signal demodulation. A fine-tuning stage is added to minimize the impact of the dataset shift between the audio data and DAS data, hence enhancing the separation and identification performance. The model has good noise tolerance and achieves nearly 90% identification accuracy even at a relatively low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Compared with the conventional method using DAS data for training, domain transfer using a large amount of diverse audio data for training well generalizes the model to the target domain and hence provides more stable performance with only little degradation of identification accuracy.

Distributed Optical Fiber-Based Radiation Detection Using an Ultra-Low-Loss Optical Fiber

The combination of an ultra-low-loss optical fiber sensitive to ionizing radiation and an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) is investigated to explore the feasibility of a single-ended distributed radiation detector. The peculiarity of the tested fiber resides in its regenerative high radiation-induced attenuation (RIA) response in the infrared spectrum (1310 nm), which returns to a low value once the irradiation has ended, combined to its sensitivity, highly increasing with the dose rate. In this work, only some sections of the fiber line were irradiated with 100 kV X-rays at room temperature, to prove the spatially resolved radiation detection capabilities of the system. The transient RIA response of the fiber was characterized at different pre-irradiation doses. A pre-irradiation treatment was shown to stabilize the optical fiber response, improving its RIA vs. dose rate linearity and repeatability. This improved response, in terms of radiation quantification, comes at the cost of a lower detection threshold. This work lays the bases for a distributed radiation detector, with some capabilities in dose rate evaluation.

Instability Compensation of Recording Interferometer in Phase-Sensitive OTDR.

In the paper, a new method of phase measurement error suppression in a phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometer is proposed and experimentally proved. The main causes of phase measurement errors are identified and considered, such as the influence of the recording interferometer instabilities and laser wavelength instability, which can cause inaccuracies in phase unwrapping. The use of a Mach-Zender interferometer made by 3 × 3 fiber couplers is proposed and tested to provide insensitivity to the recording interferometer and laser source instabilities. It is shown that using all three available photodetectors of the interferometer, instead of just one pair, achieves significantly better accuracy in the phase unwrapping. A novel compensation scheme for accurate phase measurements in a phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometer is proposed, and a comparison of the measurement signals with or without such compensation is shown and discussed. The proposed method, using three photodetectors, allows for very good compensation of the phase measurement errors arising from common-mode noise from the interferometer and laser source, providing a significant improvement in signal detection. In addition, the method allows the tracking of slow temperature changes in the monitored fiber/object, which is not obtainable when using a simple low-pass filter for phase unwrapping error reduction, as is customary in several systems of this kind.

Interference fading suppression with a multi-subcarrier pulse in a distributed acoustic sensor

A low-complexity multi-subcarrier pulse generation scheme is proposed to suppress the interference fading in a phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (Φ-OTDR) based distributed acoustic sensor (DAS) with heterodyne coherent detection. The multi-subcarrier pulse is generated in the digital domain based on the proper clipping operation of a sine signal. The localization and recovery of the disturbance signal are realized by the spectrum extraction and rotated vector sum (SERVS) method. The experimental results show that the occurrences of interference fading can be significantly reduced. The intensity fluctuation is reduced from ∼75 dB to ∼25 dB. Multiple disturbance signals are successfully demodulated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Interference fading suppression with fault-tolerant Kalman filter in phase-sensitive OTDR

A multi-sensor information fusion algorithm based on fault-tolerant Kalman filter is proposed in phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (Φ-OTDR) system, for achieving fading-free distributed vibration sensing. Firstly, a fault-tolerant dual-core complementary array model is designed. The Rayleigh scattering signal denoising, and vibration existence judgment of localization points are carried out to obtain the differentiated frequency demodulation results of the sensing points of the dual-core fiber array. Then a fault-tolerant control strategy is used to determine the sensor weight coefficients and vibration judgment coefficients during data fusion processing, and array data fusion is carried out based on time series data using Kalman filter to realize error value identification and filling. The advantage of this method is the combination of redundant data in a complementary way to improve the system stability. The frequency response ranges from 10 Hz to 2400 Hz and the localization accuracy is 98.33%. The influence of key parameters on the frequency demodulation performance of fault-tolerant Kalman filter is discussed, and a standard deviation of 14.6 Hz and an average error of 7.6 Hz are obtained. The demodulation frequency data matrix obtained by the classical demodulation method has a demodulation error probability of 89.18%, which proves the widespread existence of demodulation errors in vibration signals. The fusion error of demodulation frequency is reduced to 0.25 Hz, the frequency demodulation accuracy reaches 100%, and the demodulation error caused by interference attenuation can be completely eliminated. This system based on fault-tolerant Kalman filter has the characteristics of simple multiplexing structure, interference fading resistance and stable demodulation performance.

Dead Zone Fault Detection Optimization Method for Few-Mode Fiber Links Based on Unexcited Coupled Higher-Order Modes

Dead Zone Fault Detection Optimization Method for Few-Mode Fiber Links Based on Unexcited Coupled Higher-Order Modes

ANALISIS GANGGUAN DAN IDENTIFIKASI KABEL FIBER OPTIC MENGGUNAKAN OTDR DI OTB CIREBON-BREBES R4

Fiber optic cables that experience interference and breaks are a common problem in modern communications infrastructure. Interference and breaks in optical cables can disrupt data transmission between locations and cause a decrease in signal quality. The use of an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) has become a common method for detecting faults in optical cables by displaying the attenuation of the cable under test. Although optical fiber has a large capacity and high speed for transmitting information, relatively small attenuation still has a significant impact on transmission quality. The importance of maintaining and handling this interference is because attenuation can cause power loss in fiber optic transmission, hamper data transmission, and affect the quality of internet services

Enhanced-Reach Polarization Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry Technique for Fibre Optical Infrastructure Monitoring

Abstract This interdisciplinary research is focused on constructing and demonstrating enhanced-reach polarization optical time-domain reflectometer (POTDR) for monitoring single-mode fibre optical communication lines. An optical signal state of polarization measurements enables several new possibilities for real-time monitoring solutions in fibre optics. However, there is no commercial equipment available to determine the location in fibre optical cable where the light polarization state changes. The authors present a monitoring technique of an optical signal state of polarization based on reflected signal time-amplitude analysis with improved operation parameters, namely, timing resolution (2 to 3 ps RMS) and amplitude measurement resolution of nanosecond scale pulses (8 to 10 bits) for monitoring of fibre optical communication lines. Additionally, the demonstrated POTDR provides a considerable optical fibre line measurement reach of up to 40 km.