Open Access
Fiber-optic brillouin distributed sensors: from dynamic to long-range measurements
(CRC Press, 2018) Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Urricelqui Polvorinos, Javier; Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Mompó Roselló, Juan José; Mariñelarena Ollacarizqueta, Jon; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren
This chapter focuses on Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) sensors because they are the most successful Brillouin distributed sensors (BDS) type in terms of performance and practical applications. Distributed sensor featuring can be done in the time, coherence, or frequency domains, giving rise to the three main analysis BDS types: BOTDA, Brillouin optical correlation-domain analysis (BOCDA), and Brillouin optical frequency-domain analysis (BOFDA). The distance range of measurements performed using a BOTDA sensor is given by the length of sensing fiber that the system is able to measure with a specified performance in terms of measurement precision and time. The chapter reviews the fundamentals and the research directions in BDSs. The applications of the technology are multiple and in diverse fields¿for instance, in the oil and gas industry, where BDSs have been applied to measure temperature and strain along the umbilical cables used for subsea wells.
Open Access
Mejoras en sensores distribuidos basados en dispersión Brillouin estimulada en fibra óptica
(2015) Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Sagüés García, Mikel; Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales y de Telecomunicación; Telekomunikazio eta Industria Ingeniarien Goi Mailako Eskola Teknikoa
El presente trabajo fin de máster se ha llevado a cabo con el objetivo de desarrollar un sistema sensor de fibra óptica distribuido, capaz de monitorizar la deformación unitaria y variaciones de temperatura, basándose en el efecto de dispersión Brillouin estimulada en fibra óptica. Mejorando y solventando algunas de las limitaciones que manifiestan estos sensores hoy en día. Dado el auge actual en el que se encuentran los sensores Brillouin ópticos basados en el análisis del dominio del tiempo, el trabajo se ha centrado en ese tipo de sensores. Para ello, se ha realizado una revisión bibliográfica del estado del arte, obteniendo una visión más detallada de este tipo de sensores. Tras realizar dicha revisión, se ha concluido que esta tecnología es muy interesante para la realización de sensores de monitorización de grandes estructuras, en las cuales sean de interés las medidas de deformación unitaria y temperatura. En particular, los sensores Brillouin basados en el dominio del tiempo están en plena evolución, incluso ofrecen la posibilidad de realizar medidas a altas frecuencias de muestreo, que era la carencia de sensores anteriores. Sin embargo, cabe destacar que actualmente, las soluciones comerciales de este tipo de sensores son muy costosas y complejas, debido a los numerosos dispositivos que son necesarios para su correcto funcionamiento. Además, cuentan con algunas limitaciones como el efecto de la polarización del campo óptico en la medida, la resolución espacial alcanzada, la precisión de medida o el rango dinámico de la misma. Una vez realizada la revisión del estado del arte, se ha procedido a investigar novedosas técnicas para paliar algunos de los defectos de estos sensores. Una de las mejoras propuestas, se basa en aplicar una novedosa técnica para obtener todas las señales ópticas necesarias para este tipo de sensor mediante una única fuente óptica. De este modo, se simplifica el esquema de estos sensores, reduciendo el número de componentes necesarios para su desarrollo, de manera que se obtiene una reducción significativa en el coste final del sensor. Por otro lado, y con el objetivo de mejorar una de las principales limitaciones por las que se ven afectadas este tipo de sensor para medidas de larga distancia, se ha propuesto y se ha demostrado, por primera vez, un sistema de medida capaz de relajar los estrictos requerimientos de relación de extinción del pulso. Aplicando dicha técnica, se obtiene una mejora en la precisión de los sensores, sin suponer ello un incremento en el coste del sensor. En todo momento, las derivaciones teóricas de los esquemas de mejora propuestos han sido contrastadas con demostraciones experimentales en el laboratorio. Además, cabe destacar el hecho de que los sistemas propuestos han obtenido excelentes resultados, mejorando los sistemas actuales.
Open Access
Contribution to the advancement of Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensors
(2018) Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
Distributed fiber optic sensors (DFOS) are becoming an increasingly used technology to monitor the integrity of structures. This is due to the fact that this technology can be embedded within the structure and provide distributed information of several relevant parameters for the structure, such as stress, temperature or strain. In DFOS the fiber itself is the transducer, and the measurement of a given parameter is provided continuously along the fiber at a particular spatial resolution, without blind spots. This is the main advantage of DFOS compared to other sensing technologies, the fact that DFOS provide information of a given parameter over thousands or hundreds of thousands of positions along the optical fiber. Conversely, other sensing technologies only give information over the specific points where they are installed, that is to say, they are point sensors. This characteristic of distributed fiber sensors makes them enormously interesting when many points of a structure need to be monitored. In this case, a single distributed fiber sensor can replace many point sensors, which considerably reduces the cost per sensing point when monitoring large structures. In addition, due to the properties of the optical fiber, these sensors have a better performance compared to other kind of sensors. Among other important features, DFOS present a low signal loss, electromagnetic interference immunity, remote sensing and multiplexing capabilities, light weight, and are chemically passive, which make them a very attractive technology for field measurements. Therefore, DFOS have the added advantage of being electrically, magnetically, and chemically passive, so that can be placed in harsh environments, such as nuclear plants or areas with gas concentration, where, due to the possibility of a short circuit, electronic sensors cannot be placed. Al these characteristics make this technology unique. Among the different types of DFOS, those based on stimulated Brillouin scattering, and more specifically, those that build upon the Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) technique, are one of the most promising. The main characteristic that makes BOTDA sensors as promising, is the ability to perform distributed strain and temperature measurements over long distances at high spatial resolution. For the functioning of the sensor, the general interaction that takes place in the BOTDA technique involves two optical waves: a continuous wave probe and a counter-propagating pump pulse. The performance of the sensor response is limited, among others, by the maximum optical power of both waves that can be injected into the fiber. In this way, the main research line in BOTDA sensors is focused on the study of the physical limitations of the technique as well as the development of solutions to these constraints. Another important line relies on the simplification of the sensor setup so as to reduce the complexity and the cost of the sensor. This thesis dissertation contributes to the development of BOTDA sensors by means of different contributions in these two research lines. Several theoretical and experimental studies have been conducted to accurately determine the main limits to the sensor performance in terms of the maximum optical power of the pump and probe waves that can be used. One of the most important limitation in BOTDA sensors is the onset of non-local effects, which limits the maximum pump and probe waves power that can be injected in the fiber, and hence, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver is worsen. The so-called non-local effects generate measurement errors, because the Brillouin spectra measured at distant locations depend on the interaction at previous positions in the fiber. In this research line, we have examined the effects caused by the limited extinction ratio (ER) of the pump pulse, finding that, among other impairments, it leads to the onset of a new non-local effect originated in the depletion of the pedestal of the pump wave. In addition, it has been found that the pedestal deformation caused by the transient response of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, which are typically deployed to amplify the pump pulse, also constrains the performance of the sensor. Another contribution is the study of the techniques presented in the literature to mitigate the impairments caused by second-order non-local effects, which cause a frequency-dependent spectral deformation of the pulse. The findings of this study show that these techniques are only applicable when the Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) of the fiber is uniform, which is hard to find in real applications. Lastly, another subject of study is the limitations of the pump and probe optical power in coded-pump wave BOTDA configurations. We have observed that, in addition to some known limitations, there are two important restrictions that have to be taken into account: the onset of non-local effects and the non-linear amplification of the probe wave, both generated by the successive gain induced by the multiple pulses of the coded-pump wave. As a consequence of the findings of these studies, BOTDA configurations intended to solve these limitations have also been proposed during the thesis work. A technique to mitigate the constraints induced by the limited ER of the pump pulse has been presented. This method is based on adding a dithering to the optical source used to generate the two waves involved in the BOTDA sensor, so that the optical wavelength of both signals is modulated. In this way, the Brillouin interaction between the pedestal and the probe wavefronts become uncorrelated, and hence, the influence of the pedestal is greatly reduced. Another contribution is a technique focused on completely overcome the onset of second-order non-local effects. This method is based on continuously tracking the BFS distribution of the fiber, which combined with the probe-dithering method, has allowed, to the best of our knowledge, to inject the highest demonstrated probe wave power in a BOTDA sensor to date. In addition, in order to improve the SNR of the sensor, a novel BOTDA sensor has been proposed. This analyzer combines mono-color cyclic coding and probe-dithering techniques, so that the impairments caused by a coded pump wave are reduced, and hence, it is possible to increase the optical power and consequently enhance the sensing distance range. Finally, a novel simplified BOTDA sensor has been presented, which relies on passive optical filtering of the spectral components generated in a single optical source. In this way, the sensor setup is simplified reducing the number of optical devices, and therefore, the cost of the sensor is also reduced. This BOTDA configuration has been shown to have a performance comparable to more complex setups.
Open Access
Enhanced tolerance to pulse extinction ratio in Brillouin optical time domain analysis sensors by dithering of the optical source
(SPIE, 2015) Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Urricelqui Polvorinos, Javier; Sagüés García, Mikel; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
We demonstrate the relaxation of the stringent requirements placed on the pulse extinction ratio in long-range Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensors (BOTDA) by modulating the wavelength of the laser source that is used to generate both pump and probe waves. This modulation makes the counter-propagating pulse pedestal and probe waves to become correlated only at certain locations in the fiber, thus reducing the gain experienced by the probe wave, which is precisely the process that limits the performance in long-range BOTDAs. Proof-of-concept experimental results in a 20-km sensing link demonstrate a 6-dB reduction of the required modulator extinction ratio.
Open Access
Pulse coding linearization for Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensors
(Optical Society of America, 2018) Mariñelarena Ollacarizqueta, Jon; Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
We introduce a simple method to extend the performance of pulse coding techniques in their application to Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensors (BOTDA). It is based on applying a simple logarithmic processing on the detected probe wave that compensates the deviation from linearity of the sensor response for long code lengths. The technique ensures that the accumulated effect of a sequence of pulses is equal to the linear addition of the effects of the individual components, which is the essential condition to ensure a correct decoding of the probe gain measurement. We experimentally demonstrate the compensation of the Brillouin frequency shift error induced by the accumulated gain nonlinearity. Furthermore, a proof-of-concept 80 km sensing link within a total 200 km fiber loop demonstrated a better than 2 MHz precision with 2 m spatial resolution.
Open Access
Egituren egoeraren monitorizaziorako zuntz optikoan oinarritutako sentsore sinplifikatua
(Udako Euskal Unibertsitatea, 2015) Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Sagüés García, Mikel; Mariñelarena Ollacarizqueta, Jon; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
Brillouin hedatuko denbora eremu optikoaren analisian (BOTDA) oinarritutako sentsoreak, estruktura handien (100 km luzerako estrukturak) deformazioa eta tenperatura neurtzeko gaitasuna dute. Lan honetan, BOTDA konfigurazio sinplifikatua aurkezten dugu. Erabilitako konfigurazioaren helburua sentsorearen prezioa murriztea da, detekzio prozesuan parte hartzen duten seinale optikoen sortze prozesua sinplifikatuz. Proposatutako teknika hau, iturri optiko bati irrati-maiztasun (IM) pultsu modulatu bat aplikatuz sortutako osagai espektralen iragazketa optiko pasiboan oinarritzen da. Laborategiko esperimentuek frogatzen dute tenperatura hedatuko neurriak 1,1 metroko erresoluzioarekin 5 km zuntz optikoan zehar
Open Access
Cyclic coding for Brillouin optical time-domain analyzers using probe dithering
(Optical Society of America, 2017) Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Sauser, Florian; Llera, Miguel; Le Floch, Sébastien; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
We study the performance limits of mono-color cyclic coding applied to Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) sensors that use probe wave dithering. BOTDA analyzers with dithering of the probe use a dual-probe-sideband setup in which an optical frequency modulation of the probe waves along the fiber is introduced. This avoids non-local effects while keeping the Brillouin threshold at its highest level, thus preventing the spontaneous Brillouin scattering from generating noise in the deployed sensing fiber. In these conditions, it is possible to introduce an unprecedented high probe power into the sensing fiber, which leads to an enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and consequently to a performance improvement of the analyzer. The addition of cyclic coding in these set-ups can further increase the SNR and accordingly enhance the performance. However, this unprecedented probe power levels that can be employed result in the appearance of detrimental effects in the measurement that had not previously been observed in other BOTDA set-ups. In this work, we analyze the distortion in the decoding process and the errors in the measurement that this distortion causes, due to three factors: the power difference of the successive pulses of a code sequence, the appearance of first-order non-local effects and the non-linear amplification of the probe wave that results when using mono-color cyclic coding of the pump pulses. We apply the results of this study to demonstrate the performance enhancement that can be achieved in a long-range dithered dual-probe BOTDA. A 164-km fiber-loop is measured with 1-m spatial resolution, obtaining 3-MHz Brillouin frequency shift measurement precision at the worst contrast location. To the best of our knowledge, this is the longest sensing distance achieved with a BOTDA sensor using mono-color cyclic coding.
Open Access
Non-local effects in Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensors
(MDPI, 2017) Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Urricelqui Polvorinos, Javier; Mompó Roselló, Juan José; Mariñelarena Ollacarizqueta, Jon; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) sensors have great potential to provide distributed measurements of temperature and strain over large structures with high spatial resolution and measurement precision. However, their performance ultimately depends on the amount of probe and pump pulse power that can be injected into the sensing fiber, which determines the signal-to-noise ratio of the detected measurement signal. The probe wave power is constrained by the generation of noise induced by spontaneous Brillouin scattering and at lower power by the so-called non-local effects. In this work, we focus on the latter. We review the physical origins of non-local effects and analyze the performance impairments that they bring. In addition, we discuss the different methods that have been proposed to counteract these effects comparing their relative merits and ultimate performance. Particularly, we focus on a technique that we have devised to compensate non-local effects which is based on introducing an optical frequency modulation or dithering to the probe wave. This method is shown to provide a comprehensive solution to most of the impairments associated with non-local effects and also to enable some side benefits, such as amplification of the pump pulses to compensate the attenuation of the fiber.
Open Access
Enhancement of signal-to-noise ratio in Brillouin optical time domain analyzers by dual-probe detection
(SPIE, 2017) Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Sauser, Florian; Llera, Miguel; Le Floch, Sébastien; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa
We demonstrate a simple technique to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensors by the addition of gain and loss processes. The technique is based on the shift of the pump pulse optical frequency in a double-sideband probe system, so that the gain and loss processes take place at different frequencies. In this manner, the loss and the gain do not cancel each other out, and it makes possible to take advantage of both informations at the same time, obtaining an improvement of 3 dB on the SNR. Furthermore, the technique does not need an optical filtering, so that larger improvement on SNR and a simplification of the setup are obtained. The method is experimentally demonstrated in a 101 km fiber spool, obtaining a measurement uncertainty of 2.6 MHz (2σ) at the worst-contrast position for 2 m spatial resolution. This leads, to the best of our knowledge, to the highest figure-of-merit in a BOTDA without using coding or raman amplification.
Open Access
Second-order nonlocal effects mitigation in Brillouin optical time-domain analysis sensors by tracking the Brillouin frequency shift profile of the fiber
(IEEE, 2017) Mompó Roselló, Juan José; Iribas Pardo, Haritz; Urricelqui Polvorinos, Javier; Loayssa Lara, Alayn; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua
We report on an additional limitation that has been found in Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) sensors due to the so-called second-order nonlocal effects (NLE). Second-order NLE appear in BOTDA setups that deploy a double probe waves to compensate the transfer of energy between the pump pulse and the probe wave, and are related to a spectral distortion of the pump pulse that leads to measurement errors and an effective limit on the maximum probe power that can be deployed in the sensor. We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the techniques that have been presented so far in the literature to compensate second-order NLE are only effective in the case that the Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) along the sensing fiber is uniform. However, this requirement for uniformity is not realistic in real world scenarios in which a variety of fibers with different BFS and subjected to different environmental conditions are typically deployed. Therefore, we demonstrate a new method to mitigate the effects of BFS variation in the BOTDA setups that compensate second-order NLE. This method is based on introducing an additional wavelength modulation to the probe wave so as to track the mean BFS changes along the sensing fiber link. With this method, we demonstrate a BOTDA setup that, without coding, distributed amplification, or any other form of performance enhancement, achieves a sensing length of 120 km with 3-m spatial resolution and 2-MHz measurement precision. Moreover, the setup demonstrates, to our knowledge, the largest probe power ever injected in a BOTDA sensing link.