TY - JOUR A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Direct detection based φOTDR using the Kramers-Kronig receiver N2 - A Kramers-Kronig (KK) receiver is applied to a phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry based on direct detection. An imbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a 2× 2 coupler is used in sensing system to encode the phase information into optical intensity. The directly obtained signal is treated as the in-phase component, and the KK receiver provides the quadrature component by Hilbert transform of the obtained signal, so that the optical phase can be retrieved by IQ demodulation. The working principle is well explained, and the obtained phase variance is theoretically analyzed. The experiment demonstrates the functionality of the sensor and validates the theoretical analysis. KW - Kramers-Kronig detector KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-516803 UR - https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-28-24-37058&id=442839 DO - https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.405723 VL - 28 IS - 24 SP - 37058 EP - 37068 PB - Optical Society of America AN - OPUS4-51680 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Characterizing detection noise in phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry N2 - Phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (φOTDR) is an excellent distributed fiber sensing technique and has been applied in various areas. Its noise is however never been comprehensively studied to the best of our knowledge. The different detection noise sources in such a sensing system are thoroughly investigated. The impacts of thermal noise, shot noise and the beat between signal and the amplified spontaneous emission from a pre-amplifier have been theoretically and experimentally demonstrated. Due to the random nature of the φOTDR signal, the detection noise demonstrates distinct features at different fiber positions in a single measurement. The theoretical analysis and the experimental result explicitly affirm most of the fiber sections, and the difference at some positions may be explained by ambient noise. KW - Noise analysis KW - Acoustic sensing KW - Distributed fiber sensing PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.424410 SN - 1094-4087 VL - 29 IS - 12 SP - 18791 EP - 18806 PB - Optical Society of America CY - Washington, DC AN - OPUS4-52757 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Phase error analysis and unwrapping error suppression in phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry N2 - Phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry becomes an effective tool to realize distributed sensing, and the optical phase of the received light is usually used to quantify the strain for both dynamic and static measurement. The analysis on the overall phase error has been improved by considering the proportionality of the detection noise to the local optical power. The estimation accuracy is greatly improved by using the proposed theory, the probability density of the estimation accuracy over 99% is > 0.6, ∼39 times larger than the previously reported method. The phase unwrapping may malfunction due to the noisy signal, causing large phase errors. Point break detection algorithms are used to locate the incorrect phase unwrapping points, so the temporal evolution of the phase retrieved at each position can be divided into several sections with different offset. The phase unwrapping error is then suppressed by removing the offset. KW - Phase unwrapping KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-543919 DO - https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.446517 VL - 30 IS - 5 SP - 6934 EP - 6948 PB - Optica Publishing Group AN - OPUS4-54391 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Hicke, Konstantin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Dual functionality of wavelength scanning coherent optical time domain reflectometer N2 - Wavelength scanning coherent optical time domain reflectometer (WS-COTDR) is a good candidate to spatially resolve the environmental information at comparatively low frequency. This paper reveals it can also work as a traditional optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) to identify Fresnel reflection by averaging the obtained signal over the wavelength scanning range. Simultaneous distributed vibration sensing and a traditional OTDR measurement are experimentally demonstrated using the WS-COTDR system. T2 - European Workshop on Optical Fibre Sensors (EWOFS 2023) CY - Mons, Belgium DA - 23.05.2023 KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing PY - 2023 DO - https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2678098 VL - 12643 SP - 1 EP - 4 PB - SPEI AN - OPUS4-57590 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Hicke, Konstantin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Dual-functionality of WS-COTDR for ground movement monitoring N2 - Wavelength scanning coherent optical time domain reflectometer (WS-COTDR) is a good candidate to spatially resolve the environmental information at comparatively low frequency. This paper reveals it can also work as a traditional optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) to identify Fresnel reflection by averaging the obtained signal over the wavelength scanning range. Simultaneous distributed vibration sensing and a traditional OTDR measurement are experimentally demonstrated using the WS-COTDR system. T2 - European Workshop on Optical Fibre Sensors (EWOFS 2023) CY - Mons, Belgium DA - 23.05.2023 KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing KW - Structural health monitoring PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-57591 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Novel fading suppression method for distributed optical fiber acoustic sensing N2 - A universal method based on alternating pulse widths is proposed to suppress the signal fading for all distributed acoustic sensors (DASs) and experimentally demonstrated by one DAS system based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. T2 - Optica Sensing Congress CY - Munich, Germany DA - 30.07.2023 KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing KW - Fading suppression KW - Structural health monitoring PY - 2023 SP - 1 EP - 2 AN - OPUS4-58048 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Novel fading suppression method for distributed optical fiber acoustic sensing N2 - A universal method based on alternating pulse widths is proposed to suppress the signal fading for all distributed acoustic sensors (DASs) and experimentally demonstrated by one DAS system based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. T2 - Optica Sensing Congress CY - Munich, Germany DA - 30.07.2023 KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Fading suppression PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-58049 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Thomas, P. T1 - Phase Error Evaluation via Differentiation and Cross-Multiplication Demodulation in Phase-Sensitive Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry N2 - Phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (jOTDR) is a technology for distributed vibration sensing, where vibration amplitudes are determined by recovering the phase of the backscattered light. Measurement noise induces phase errors, which degrades sensing performance. The phase errors, using a differentiation and cross-multiplication (DCM) algorithm, are investigated theoretically and experimentally in a jOTDR system based on a phase retrieval configuration consisting of an imbalanced Mach–Zehnder interferometer (IMZI) and a 3 x 3 coupler. Analysis shows that phase error is highly dependent on the AC component of the obtained signal, essentially being inversely proportional to the product of the power of the light backscattered from two locations. An analytical expression was derived to estimate the phase error and was confirmed by experiment. When applied to the same measurement data, the error is found to be slightly smaller than that obtained using in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) demodulation. The error, however, increases for longer measurement times. KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry KW - Phase error PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-580501 UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/10/5/514 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics10050514 SN - 2304-6732 VL - 10 IS - 5 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-58050 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin T1 - Introduction to group 8.6 N2 - A brief introduction of group 8.6 and the research work on the application of fiber sensing. T2 - DIU Besuch CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 05.05.2023 KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Distributed acoustic sensing KW - Practical application PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-57430 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin T1 - Configuration simplification and data reduction in a DAS system for monitoring large infrastructures N2 - The distributed acoustic sensor based on an imbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a 3×3 coupler is simplified by using a balanced detector instead of three identical photodetectors. The obtained data is reduced by two third accordingly. T2 - Optica Sensing Congress 2024 CY - Toulouse, France DA - 15.07.2024 KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - System simplification KW - Data reduction PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-60841 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Suppression of Rayleigh fading induced errors in φOTDR by different pulse widths for improving the reliability of civil infrastructure monitoring N2 - Rayleigh fading is a widely observed phenomenon in the many fields, such as wireless communication and optical imaging. It is also the main factor limiting the performance of the phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (φOTDR). The low SNR at the fading points results in a large measurement error, severely affecting the reliability of civil infrastructure monitoring. The proposed method involves changing the pulse width during measurements to suppress the impact of fading. Experimental result shows that the number of fading points is greatly reduced by ∼ 96 % and the measurement error is reduced by more than 5 times. Unlike existing methods, this approach requires no hardware modifications, making it applicable to almost all current phase-based φOTDR systems. The versatility and effectiveness of this method make it an excellent candidate for infrastructure monitoring and related fields. KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Optical fiber sensing KW - Phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry KW - Infrastructure monitoring KW - Rayleigh fading PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-614208 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2024.111927 SN - 1879-2545 VL - 181 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-61420 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Hicke, Konstantin A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Distributed fiber optic sensing for monitoring of underground facilities N2 - Distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) technique is a promising and robust non-destructive testing tool that can seamlessly acquire environmental conditions over large scales. Therefore, it has found extensive applications in structural health monitoring. Its appeal for monitoring underground facilities lies in the intrinsic properties of the optical fiber, such as immunity to magnetic interference, small size, chemical inertia, etc. This paper provides a concise overview of DFOS applications in underground facility monitoring. Following a brief introduction to the working principle of the DFOS technique, various examples are provided to demonstrate how distributed fiber sensors contribute to monitoring underground facilities. The paper presents unpublished field test results with an emphasis in the energy sector, including monitoring gas storage facilities, geothermal reservoir exploration, and ground movement detection. Furthermore, the paper identifies several directions for enhancing the DFOS system. T2 - SPIE Photonics Europe CY - Strasbourg, France DA - 07.04.2024 KW - Underground gas storage KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Geothermal borehole KW - Ground movement KW - Leakage detection KW - Structure health monitoring PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-60146 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin T1 - Humidity response analysis of optical fibers with hygroscopic coatings based on Lamé’s equations N2 - Optical fibers with hygroscopic coatings are widely used for humidity sensing, where the coating expands upon absorbing water, inducing strain in the fiber. This strain is then used to determine humidity. However, previous studies have oversimplified the strain generation process. A comprehensive three-dimensional model of the mechanical interaction between the coating and the fiber is built based on Lamé’s equations. An analytical expression for the induced strain is derived. The proposed model predicts larger humidity-induced strain compared to the reported ones, given the same Young’s modulus or coefficient of humidity expansion for the coating. Interestingly, the effect of coating thickness on strain response are quite similar for both methods. Experimental validation using fibers with a polyimide coating shows strong agreement with the theoretical predictions. T2 - 29th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors CY - Porto, Portugal DA - 26.05.2025 KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Humidity sensors KW - Lamé’s equations KW - Reflectometry KW - Optical fiber sensors KW - Rayleigh scattering KW - Structural health monitoring PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63261 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin T1 - Polarization diversity detection based wavelength scanning coherent optical time domain reflectometry N2 - Although wavelength scanning coherent optical time-domain reflectometry (WS-COTDR) system is immune to fading effect, it suffers from occasional and localized large errors caused by the false peak in the correlation spectrum due to the large signal generated in the random interference of the backscattered light. Polarization diversity detection is applied to a standard WS-COTDR system to suppress large measurement errors. In this way, the orthogonally polarized components of backscattered light can be obtained and processed separately. Due to the birefringence of the sensing fiber, the components experience different interference processes, so the average of their correlation spectrum can suppress the false peaks and finally reduce the occurrence of larger errors. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated in laboratory for monitoring of sinusoidal vibrations and in field for tracking the bus movement via a dark fiber. T2 - 29th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors CY - Porto, Portugal DA - 26.05.2025 KW - Coherent optical time domain reflectometry KW - Traffic monitoring KW - Polarization diversity detection KW - Distributed fiber sensing PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63260 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Schukar, Marcus A1 - Großwig, S. A1 - Weber, U. A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Monitoring acoustic events in boreholes using wavelengthscanning coherent optical time domain reflectometry in multimode fiber N2 - A distributed acoustic sensor (DAS) based on wavelength-scanning coherent optical time domain reflectometer (WS-COTDR) is tested in an underground gas storage based on a multimode fiber for the first time to the best of our knowledge. The WS-COTDR acquires the reflection spectrum by scanning the wavelength of the laser and uses the spectra to calibrate strain. It overcomes the fading problem which is common for all DAS systems, and possesses the advantage of simple configuration and low-cost. The working principle of the system is well explained and the measurement results are presented. Various artificial and natural acoustic events have been successfully detected by the WS-COTDR. Such a sensor demonstrates several advantages over the traditional DAS systems, so it is supposed to be widely used in the oil and gas industry. T2 - EAGE GeoTech 2021 CY - Online meeting DA - 01.03.2021 KW - Borehole monitoring KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609.202131010 SP - 1 EP - 5 AN - OPUS4-52152 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Schukar, Marcus A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Characterizing vibration response of fiber cables for distributed acoustic sensing N2 - The vibration responses of two fiber cables are characterized up to 16 kHz and compared with a standard tight-buffered 900 um fiber. The response of the cables is suppressed due to the cable protection. T2 - 27th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS-27) CY - Alexandria, VA, USA DA - 29.08.2022 KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing KW - Response characterization PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-56099 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Schukar, Marcus A1 - Weege, S. A1 - Roske, T. A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Leakage detection at a borehole simulator using distributed acoustic sensing N2 - A distributed acoustic sensing system is used to detect the leakage in a borehole simulator by measuring the leakage induced vibration. The leakage location can be clearly determined by frequency spectrum analysis. T2 - 27th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS-27) CY - Alexandria, VA, USA DA - 29.08.2022 KW - Leakage detection KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Distributed acoustic sensing PY - 2022 SP - 1 EP - 4 PB - Optica CY - Washington D.C., USA AN - OPUS4-56097 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Schukar, Marcus A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Characterizing vibration response of fiber cables for distributed acoustic sensing N2 - The vibration responses of two fiber cables are characterized up to 16 kHz and compared with a standard tight-buffered 900 um fiber. The response of the cables is suppressed due to the cable protection T2 - 27th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS-27) CY - Alexandria, VA, USA DA - 29.08.2022 KW - Response characterization KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Acoustic sensing PY - 2022 SP - 1 EP - 4 PB - Optica CY - Washington D.C., USA AN - OPUS4-56096 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Schukar, Marcus A1 - Weege, S. A1 - Roske, T. A1 - Krebber, Katerina T1 - Leakage detection at a borehole simulator using distributed acoustic sensing N2 - A distributed acoustic sensing system is used to detect the leakage in a borehole simulator by measuring the leakage induced vibration. The leakage location can be clearly determined by frequency spectrum analysis. T2 - 27th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS-27) CY - Alexandria, VA, USA DA - 29.08.2022 KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Distributed acoustic sensing KW - Leakage detection PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-56098 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Schukar, Marcus T1 - Humidity response analysis of optical fibers with hygroscopic coatings based on Lamé’s equations N2 - Optical fibers with hygroscopic coatings are widely used for humidity sensing, where the coating expands upon absorbing water, inducing strain in the fiber. This strain is then used to determine humidity. However, previous studies have oversimplified the strain generation process. A comprehensive three-dimensional model of the mechanical interaction between the coating and the fiber is built based on Lamé’s equations. An analytical expression for the induced strain is derived. The proposed model predicts larger humidity-induced strain compared to the reported ones, given the same Young’s modulus or coefficient of humidity expansion for the coating. Interestingly, the effect of coating thickness on strain response are quite similar for both methods. Experimental validation using fibers with a polyimide coating shows strong agreement with the theoretical predictions. T2 - 29th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors CY - Porto, Portugal DA - 26.05.2025 KW - Reflectometry KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Humidity sensors KW - Lamé’s equations KW - Optical fiber sensors KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Rayleigh scattering PY - 2025 SN - 978-1-5106-9188-9 DO - https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3060891 VL - 13639 SP - 1 EP - 4 PB - SPIE AN - OPUS4-63257 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Lu, Xin A1 - Hicke, Konstantin T1 - Polarization-diversity-detection-based wavelength-scanning coherent-optical-time-domain reflectometer and its application for bus monitoring N2 - Although wavelength scanning coherent optical time-domain reflectometry (WS-COTDR) system is immune to fading effect, it suffers from occasional and localized large errors caused by the false peak in the correlation spectrum due to the large signal generated in the random interference of the backscattered light. Polarization diversity detection is applied to a standard WS-COTDR system to suppress large measurement errors. In this way, the orthogonally polarized components of backscattered light can be obtained and processed separately. Due to the birefringence of the sensing fiber, the components experience different interference processes, so the average of their correlation spectrum can suppress the false peaks and finally reduce the occurrence of larger errors. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated in laboratory for monitoring of sinusoidal vibrations and in field for tracking the bus movement via a dark fiber. T2 - 29th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors CY - Porto, Portugal DA - 26.05.2025 KW - Traffic monitoring KW - Coherent optical time domain reflectometry KW - Distributed fiber sensing KW - Polarization diversity detection PY - 2025 SN - 978-1-5106-9187-2 DO - https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3060889 VL - 13639 SP - 1 EP - 4 PB - SPIE AN - OPUS4-63258 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -