Measurement of signal losses on optical fibre cable due to vibrations using optical time domain reflectometer

Abstract

The last couple of decades have witnessed a steep rise in extensive research on fiber optical communication fields. Researches have been done for past few decades on distributed sensor and also fabricating the fibre optic to make sensor to detect vibration. The purpose of this paper is to present a fiber optic sensor based on the monitoring of vibrations and signal losses in a single mode optical fiber. In this study, a single mode optical fiber was subjected to vibrations from these
sources, Flask shaker (Gallenkamp model), gasoline generator (Elepaq-EC6500 5.5KVA), the university heavy duty truck (Mercedes-Benz Zetros), and the medical complex power plant. The vibrations were generated on the optical fibre cable line along the road that leads to capitol at the university medical complex of the optical fibre network. The signal losses due to vibrations on the optical fiber to determine the vibration sensitivity were investigated using a commercial optical
time domain reflectometer (Anritsu MT9083AI Access Master). Three scenarios were observed, a signal loss of 2.62dB was measured in the first scenario, 2.70dB in the second scenario and a signal loss of 2.76 was measured in the third scenario.