-A A +A
Type: 
Journal
Description: 
A theoretical and experimental analysis of the impact of pulse modulation format on Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) sensors using pulse coding techniques has been carried out. Pulse coding with conventional non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulation format is shown to induce significant distortions in the measured Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS), especially in proximity of abrupt changes in the fiber gain spectra. Such an effect, as confirmed by the theoretical analysis, is due to acoustic wave pre-excitation and non-uniform gain which depends on the bit patterns defined by the different codewords. A successful use of pulse coding techniques then requires to suitably optimize the employed modulation format in order to avoid spurious oscillations causing severe penalties in the attained accuracy. Coding technique with return-to-zero (RZ) modulation format is analyzed under different duty-cycle conditions …
Publisher: 
Optical Society of America
Publication date: 
5 Jul 2010
Authors: 

Marcelo A Soto, Gabriele Bolognini, Fabrizio Di Pasquale

Biblio References: 
Volume: 18 Issue: 14 Pages: 14878-14892
Origin: 
Optics Express