At&t Intellectual Property I, L.p.

Optasense Holdings Limited

Radiodetection Limited

Sintela Limited

Stuart Russell

Andrew Biggerstaff Lewis

Justin Hayward

John P Dakin

Andrew Lennard Lewis

Andris Egle

Andrew Weld

Disclosed are signal processing methods for an optical detection system, and corresponding systems. An example is a signal processing method for a distributed acoustic sensing system which utilizes spread spectrum pulses transmitted along an optical path, where a scattered signal that was scattered at a scattering location along an optical path is received and interfered with a local oscillator signal to generate a first carrier signal that is modulated by a phase difference between the local oscillator and scattered signals. The first carrier signal is then processed to generate a second carrier signal that is modulated by a spatial differential of the phase difference. Pulse compression is then performed on the second carrier signal. The spatial differential of the phase difference is directly related to the strain (or acoustic environment) of the optical path at the scattering location, and so enables the strain at the scattering location to be estimated.

Signal processing methods for an optical detection system

Disclosed is a signal processing method for a distributed acoustic sensing system (DAS), where a scattered signal that was scattered at a scattering location along an optical path is received and interfered with a local oscillator signal to generate a first carrier signal that is modulated by a phase difference between the local oscillator signal and the scattered signal. The first carrier signal is then digitally processed in order to generate a second carrier signal that is modulated by a spatial differential of the phase difference. The spatial differential of the phase difference is directly related to the strain (or acoustic environment) of the optical path at the scattering location, and so enables the strain at the scattering location to be estimated.

An improved technique for acoustic sensing involves, in one embodiment, launching into a medium, a plurality of groups of pulse-modulated electromagnetic-waves. The frequency of electromagnetic waves in a pulse within a group differs from the frequency of the electromagnetic waves in another pulse within the group. The energy scattered by the medium is detected and, in one embodiment, the beat signal may be used to determine a characteristic of the environment of the medium. For example, if the medium is a buried optical fiber into which light pulses have been launched in accordance with the invention, the presence of acoustic waves within the region of the buried fiber can be detected.

Method and apparatus for detecting a disturbance in a medium based on shifted filtered phase information for a plurality of locations

An improved technique for acoustic sensing involves, in one embodiment, launching into a medium, a plurality of groups of pulse-modulated electromagnetic-waves. The frequency of electromagnetic waves in a pulse within a group differs from the frequency of the electromagnetic waves in another pulse within the group. The energy scattered by the medium is detected and, in one embodiment, may be used to determine a characteristic of the environment of the medium. For example, if the medium is a buried optical fiber into which light pulses have been launched in accordance with the invention, the presence of acoustic waves within the region of the buried fiber can be detected.

Method and apparatus for detecting a disturbance in a medium based on shifted filtered phase information for a plurality of fixed locations

Method and apparatus for detecting a disturbance in a medium

Method and apparatus for detecting a disturbance in a medium using threshold based detection

This application relates to methods and apparatus for distributed fibre optic sensing, especially distributed acoustic sensing (DAS). The sensor apparatus () has an optical generator () for repeatedly generating a first coded sequence of optical radiation to be launched into a sensing optical fibre (). The first coded sequence is encoded according to a polylevel coding sequence () and has desired autocorrelation properties. A detector () detects optical radiation which has been Rayleigh backscattered from within the sensing optical fibre and a processor () processes the output of the detector. The processor processes the detector output in range bins and for each range bin correlating a detection signal derived from the detector output with the polylevel coding sequence at a time delay corresponding to that particular range bin. This provides a measurement signal indicative of environmental disturbances, such as incident acoustic/seismic signals, acting on a portion of the sensing fibre corresponding to that range bin.

Distributed fibre optic sensing

The application describes methods and apparatus for distributed fiber sensing, especially distributed acoustic/strain sensing. The method involves launching interrogating radiation in to an optical fiber and sampling radiation backscattered from within said fiber at a rate so as to acquire a plurality of samples corresponding to each sensing portion of interest. The plurality of samples are divided into separate processing channels and processed to determine a phase value for that channel. A quality metric is then applied to the processed phase data and the data combined to provide an overall phase value for the sensing portion based on the quality metric. The quality metric may be a measure of the degree of similarity of the processed data from the channels. The interrogating radiation may comprise two relatively narrow pulses separated by a relatively wide gap and the sampling rate may be set such that a plurality of substantially independent diversity samples are acquired.

Fibre optic distributed sensing

The application describes methods and apparatus for distributed fiber sensing, especially distributed acoustic/strain sensing. The method involves launching at least first and second pulse pairs into an optical fiber, the first and second pulse pairs having the same frequency configuration as one another and being generated such that the phase relationship of the pulses of the first pulse pair has a predetermined relative phase difference to the phase relationship of the pulses of the second pulse pair. In one embodiment there is a frequency difference between the pulses in a pulse pair which is related to the launch rate of the pulse pairs. In another embodiment the phase difference between the pulses in a pair is varied between successive launches. In this way an analytic version of the backscatter interference signal can be generated within the baseband of the sensor.

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Bristol, United Kingdom

Stuart Russell