Characterization of an amplified OTDR fiber-optic multipoint sensor system

Abstract

For the development of optical sensors, we investigate the advantages of employing an erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) in a sensor system based on optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR). We first characterize the EDFA using the OTDR in terms of gain, insertion loss and pumping configurations. Then we compare the system performance with and without amplification. Our experimental results indicate that the use of the amplified OTDR system can increase the total reach of the sensor system.