Repeater Fault Location for a Submarine Optical Fiber Cable Transmission System

This paper introduces a repeater fault location system for a repeated submarine optical fiber transmission system of 400 Mbits/ s at 1.3μm. The repeater fault location system is used in an out-of-service test. The fault locator transmits a test signal via a main optical fiber line, in order to make a loop-back path in one of the repeaters for returning the test signals via another main optical fiber line and to measure the bit error rate (BER) of the interrogated repeater. The test signal is a kind of pseudorandom signal that includes a low frequency component, which is assigned to the repeater as a supervisory frequency tone (SVT) signal. The BER is measured by counting the number of low frequency signal phase inversions in a time. This paper first describes the test signal generating method, SVT frequency allocation, and the filter design installed in a repeater. Next, there is a discussion of how the capability of the repeater fault locator has been experimentally verified by using two submarine repeaters, including four regenerative repeater units and three submarine optical fiber cables. As a result, a BER of less than
5 \times 10^{-6}
is accurately measured.