Optical fiber sensing system with fiber having sensitive region optically affected by presence of a measurand

摘要

Disclosed is a reversible distributed optical fiber sensing system with high spatial resolution. The system has: a sensitive optical fiber having a core with a cladding having at least one sensitive region being sensitive to a measurand and having a controllable spatial resolution; at least one probing light source directed from the exterior of the cladding into the sensitive region to illuminating each sensitive region individually, one at a time; detector means in axial optical communication with a first terminus of the sensitive optical fiber; signal processing means communicating with the detector means; display means communicating with the signal processing means; and a power supply. The optical fiber is affected in a monotonic relationship by the presence of the measurand. The probing light interacts with the region such that a modified probing light is generated, each modification caused by the presence of the measurand and each modified probing light being coupled inoto the core as a light signal with high signal intensity associated with each region. The detector means receives the light signal upon exiting the terminus to measure the light signal intensity and to correlate the intensity with an electric signal. The signal is transmitted to the signal processing means where a quantity is found and then displayed on the display means.