Harnessing oversampling in correlation-coded OTDR

• Main Authors: Liao, Ruolin, Tang, Ming, Zhao, Can, Wu, Hao, Fu, Songnian, Liu, Deming, Shum, Perry Ping
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Brillouin; OTDR; DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/102697; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47784
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Coding technique has long been investigated as a solution to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) without sacrificing spatial resolution in optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) systems. The past researches have been focusing at the construction of new codes, the combination of coding and other techniques, and the application of coding technique to versatile distributed optical fiber sensing systems such as Raman OTDR and Brillouin optical time domain analyzer, where the results are fruitful. Here, we reveal that oversampling after photodetection opens up a new dimension for coded OTDR other than code length and code type. We demonstrate that the coding gain can be further improved by harnessing the oversampling. Furthermore, the photodetector’s bandwidth-limited feature can also be used to select the optimal sampling rate in order to obtain additional SNR enhancement. We believe this principle could be applied to any practical correlation-coded OTDR-based distributed fiber sensing systems with sufficient SNR enhancement. Our findings can serve to update existing instruments based on correlation-coded OTDR in a straightforward manner and at a relatively low cost.