VERTEILTER FASEROPTISCHER SENSOR

摘要

This invention provides a distributed optical fiber sensor which necessitates no manual adjustment and is capable of measuring a strain and/or a temperature with high accuracy and high spatial resolution. A distributed optical fiber sensor of the invention utilizing a Brillouin scattering phenomenon, comprises a stepwise optical light source for generating an optical pulse having a stepwise distribution of light intensity to increase toward the center; a continuous light source for generating continuous light; a sensing optical fiber on which the optical pulse is incident as probe light and the continuous light is incident as pump light to thereby cause a Brillouin scattering phenomenon between the probe light and the pump light; and a Brillouin time domain detector for determining a Brillouin loss spectrum or a Brillouin gain spectrum from the light emerging from the sensing optical fiber and attributed to the Brillouin scattering phenomenon, and measuring strain caused in and/or temperature of the sensing optical fiber in the longitudinal direction thereof based on the determined Brillouin loss spectrum or the Brillouin gain spectrum.