On the actual bandwidth of some dynamic fiber-optic strain/temperature interrogators

The measurement accuracy of dynamic fiber-optic sensing interrogators, which use frequency scanning to determine the value of the measurand, err as either the event bandwidth approaches half the instrument sampling frequency or when the event dynamic range comes close to the instrument designed value. One main source of error is the common practice of assigning sampling at a non-uniform grid to a uniform one. Harmonics higher than -20 dB are observed for signal frequencies exceeding 25% of the sampling rate and/or for signal amplitudes higher than 15% of the instrument dynamic range. These findings have applications to fiber-Bragg-grating and Brillouin interrogators.