High-Speed and High-Resolution Interrogation of a Strain and Temperature Random Grating Sensor

High-speed and high-resolution interrogation of a random fiber grating sensor based on spectral shaping and wavelength-to-time (SS-WTT) mapping, and pulse compression for simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature is proposed and demonstrated. In the proposed system, an ultrashort pulse is spectrum shaped by a high-birefringence (Hi-Bi) random grating (HBRG) to generate two orthogonally polarized spectra with a wavelength difference determined by the birefringence of the HBRG, which are then fed to a dispersive optical loop in which a linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (LCFBG) is incorporated, to perform linear WTT mapping, to generate two temporally separated optical pulses, which are converted to two random electrical waveforms at a photodetector). Random pulse compression is then performed to increase the interrogation resolution. By measuring the time shifts of the temporally compressed pulses, the strain and temperature information is retrieved. An experiment is performed. The experimental results show that the proposed random grating sensor and its interrogation system can provide a strain and temperature resolution of 7.1 μϵ and 0.79 °C at an ultrahigh speed of 20 MHz.