442 Vol. 42, No.
3 / February 1 2017 / Optics Letters
Multi-event waveform-retrieved distributed
optical fiber acoustic sensor using dual-pulse
heterodyne phase-sensitive OTDR
XIANGGE HE,1 SHANGRAN XIE,1,2 FEI LIU,1 SHAN CAO,1 LIJUAN GU,3 XIAOPING ZHENG,1
1
Department of Electronic and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2
Current address: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Staudtstr. 2, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
3
School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
4
Institute of Ocean Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
*Corresponding author: 1606871001@pku.edu.cn
Received 3 November 2016; revised 18 December 2016; accepted 21 December 2016; posted 21 December 2016 (Doc. ID 279840);
published 19 January 2017
We demonstrate a novel type of distributed optical fiber
acoustic sensor, with the ability to detect and retrieve actual
temporal waveforms of multiple vibration events that occur
simultaneously at different positions along the fiber. The
system is realized via a dual-pulse phase-sensitive optical
time-domain reflectometry, and the actual waveform is re-
trieved by heterodyne phase demodulation. Experimental
results show that the system
p has a background noise level
as low as 8.91 × 10−4 rad∕ Hz with a demodulation signal-
to-noise ratio of 49.17 dB at 1 kHz, and can achieve a
dynamic range of ∼60 dB at 1 kHz (0.1 to 104 rad) for phase
demodulation, as well as a detection frequency range from
20 Hz to 25 kHz. © 2017 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.2370) Fiber optics sensors; (060.2840)
Heterodyne; (060.5060) Phase modulation; (280.1350) Backscattering.
https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.42.000442
Distributed optical fiber acoustic sensor (DOFAS) has been
widely used on vibration detections in several practical appli-
cations, such as intrusion detection, railway safety monitoring,
and seismic applications [1–3]. Several types of DOFAS
have been reported, including fiber interferometry (e.g., dual
Mach–Zehnder interferometer [4]), phase-sensitive optical
time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR) [1], optical frequency-
domain reflectometry (OFDR) [5,6] and Brillouin optical
time-domain analysis (BOTDA) [7]. A most recent compre-
hensive review on DOFAS can be found in [8]. Currently, the
main purpose of DOFAS development is to further push
the limit of the parameters, including sensing length, spatial
resolution, maximum detectable frequency, and minimum
detectable dynamic strain.
On the other hand, full retrieval of the waveform of the
acoustic signal can be used to gather more information on
the temporal dynamics of the vibration events, and is poten-
tially useful for several key applications [9]. Besides, the ability
0146-9592/17/030442-04 Journal © 2017 Optical Society of America
Letter
AND MIN ZHANG4,*
to retrieve multiple events at the same time along the fiber is
also important for the practical applications of DOFAS. [7]
uses BOTDA system combined with a signal synthesizer to
realize the dynamic measurement for vibrations induced by
audio speakers, while the need for averaging in the Brillouin
spectrum recovery process limits the maximum detection fre-
quency to hundreds of hertz on 100 m long fiber. The OFDR
system is based on a wavelength scanning technique and is
known for its high spatial resolution [10,11]. Although several
techniques have been proposed for dynamic strain measure-
ment [5,6], the measured strain accuracy is limited to the
με level, mainly due to the laser scanning wavelength uncer-
tainty [8]; also, there is a lack of reports on the ability to resolve
multiple vibration events along the fiber using OFDR. For
Φ-OTDR systems, with the potential of waveform retrieval,
phase demodulation techniques using phase diversity [12],
additional unbalanced interferometry [13,14], and quadrature
detection [15] have been reported. The sensor demonstrated in
[13] can detect multiple dynamic perturbations within a fre-
quency range of 500 to 5000 Hz along 1 km sensing fiber, with
a minimum detectable strain of 80 nε. [14] combines a phase-
generated carrier demodulation algorithm p with Φ-OTDR to
achieve a noise level of 3 × 10−3 rad∕ Hz and a signal-to-noise
ratio (SNR) of about 30.45 dB. Φ-OTDR is currently the most
promising technique to achieve multi-event waveform-
retrieved distributed vibration sensing; however, the relatively
low SNR at the detection end sets the bottleneck for its mea-
surement bandwidth and resolution.
In this Letter, we report a dual-pulse Φ-OTDR system,
which, together with a properly designed heterodyne phase
demodulation algorithm, can simultaneously retrieve the actual
waveform of multiple vibration events with a high SNR along a
470 m long single-mode fiber. The two pulses are offset in both
temporal and frequency domains, functioning similar as the
sensing and reference arms of an interferometer. Hence, the
vibration-induced phase change is modulated onto the two
sidebands of the heterodyne frequency, which can be further
recovered using heterodyne demodulation. As the two pulses
 Letter
propagate along the same fiber, they share the noise properties
with each other. Therefore, the SNR of the demodulated signal
is greatly enhanced after heterodyne detection. Without the
need for averaging, the reported
p system has a background noise
level of 8.91 × 10−4 rad∕ Hz with a SNR of 49.17 dB at
1 kHz, improved by more than one order of magnitude,
compared with previous work [14]; the system can recover
the dynamic phase change from 0.1 to 104 rad (60 dB dynamic
range) with a frequency up to 25 kHz.
The working principle of the proposed DOFAS is illustrated
in Fig. 1(a), which is based on dual-pulse heterodyne
Φ-OTDR. Two pulses with the same duration, one with fre-
quency f 1 and the other with f 2 , are separated with Δt in
time. The red and blue curves in Fig. 1(a) represent, respec-
tively, the backscattered Rayleigh signal from pulse 1 and pulse
2, and the detected signal is the interference between them.
Assume the sensing fiber is composed of cascaded slices with
thickness ΔL [16]. For each individual injection pulse, at a
distance z m  mΔL, the interference field of backscattered
light within a pulse can be generally written as
X−1
mN
Ez m   E 0 γ k σ k e jθk e jφk · e −αkΔL ; (1)
km
where E 0 is the field amplitude of the incident light; α is the
fiber attenuation coefficient; γ k , σ k , and θk are, respectively, the
polarization fading factor, the Rayleigh scattering cross section
and the phase delay coming from the kth slice within the pulse.
φk is the dynamic phase change caused by the vibration in the
kth slice, and N is the total number of slices within a pulse.
Given that all slices within a pulse share the same properties,
γ k , σ k , and θk can be considered as constants, and the dimen-
sion of the vibration event is comparable with ΔL; Eq. (1) can
be simplified as
Ez m   S m · e jΦm ; (2)
where S m  E 0 e −αmΔL γ
m σm and Φm represents the total
e jθm ,
phase change induced by the vibration acting on the pulse
at position z m . When the separation between the two pulses
(Ld , composing of N d slices) is longer than the length of each
pulse, the total field of backscattered light can be expressed as
Fig. 1. (a) Working principle of the dual-pulse heterodyne
Φ-OTDR. (b) Heterodyne demodulation algorithm. LPF, low pass
filter.
Vol. 42, No. 3 / February 1 2017 / Optics Letters 443
Ez m   S m · e jΦm · e j2πf 1 tφ1   S m−N d · e jΦm−N d
· e j2πf 2 tφ2  ; (3)
where φ1 and φ2 represent the initial phases of the two pulses.
The AC component of the interference intensity can be there-
fore expressed as
I s z m   jS m S m−N d j cos2πΔf t  Φt  Δφ0 ; (4)
where Δf  f 1 − f 2 is the heterodyne frequency, Φt 
Φm − Φm−N d is the vibration-induced phase change, and
Δφ0  φ1 − φ2 . A heterodyne demodulation algorithm shown
in Fig. 1(b) [17] is then adopted to retrieve Φt.
The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 2. A narrow line-
width CW laser at 1550.12 nm (NKT Koheras BasiK E15,
with a central frequency f 0 ) was separated into two paths by
an optical coupler (OC1); then two acousto-optic modulators
(AOM1 and AOM2), with frequency shifts f 1  100 MHz
and f 2  100.05 MHz, respectively, were used to generate
the heterodyne pulses, with a pulse duration of 100 ns and
a repetition rate of f r  200 kHz. A Ld  36 m delay fiber
was placed after AOM2 to temporally offset the two pulses with
each other. Ld was chosen to be long enough to separate the two
pulses considering the rising time of each pulse. The spatial
resolution of our system is then given by w  Ld ∕2, where
w is the pulse width. This value can be further pushed down
through reducing w and Ld by upgrading the optical compo-
nents in the setup (e.g., AOMs). The two pulses were then
combined via OC2 and were amplified by an erbium-doped
fiber amplifier (EDFA) before injecting into a circulator. The
fiber under test was 470 m long single-mode fiber (SMF-28).
Three piezoelectric ceramic transducers (PZTs) were placed at
170, 220, and 330 m positions, wrapped with 5, 7, and 6 m
long fiber, respectively. The PZTs were driven by signal gen-
erators with tunable amplitude and frequency to mimic vibra-
tion events. The backscattered Rayleigh signal was amplified by
another EDFA, and the amplified spontaneous emission noise
was filtered out before being delivered into a photodetector.
The data were sampled by a data acquisition card with a
Fig. 2. Experimental setup of a dual-pulse heterodyne Φ-OTDR
system. OC, optical coupler; AOM, acousto-optic modulator; EDFA,
erbium-doped fiber amplifier; Cir, circulator; SMF, single-mode fiber;
PZT, piezoelectric ceramic transducer; DAQ, data acquisition card.
 444 Vol. 42, No. 3 / February 1 2017 / Optics Letters Letter

sampling rate of f s  20 MS∕s before being sent to phase

demodulation.
Figure 3 plots 10 consecutive typical spatial backscattered
traces (blue curves) collected in the experiment, with the rep-
etition rate of 200 kHz, and with the length equal to the fiber
length. In each measurement, M  104 traces were collected,
and then the temporal domain interference signal at position z
can be reconstructed by extracting the corresponding data point
from the spatial traces (red curve), which has the form of
Eq. (4). Finally, the heterodyne demodulation algorithm was
further applied to retrieve Φt. Actually, each channel around
position z with a length given by the spatial resolution can be
considered as an “independent sensor” for multi-event detec-
tion, with their total number estimated as a sensing fiber length
divided by the spatial resolution.
To demonstrate the performance of our system, three
different types of vibration events, with waveforms of cardinal
sinusoidal (sinc) function, burst signal, and frequency-swept
signal, respectively, were applied on PZT1, PZT2, and PZT3
simultaneously. Specifically, on PZT1, a sinc waveform with a
frequency of 300 Hz and peak-to-peak voltage (Vpp) of
500 mV was applied. The signal applied on PZT2 was a burst
waveform with 100 Hz burst rate and one-cycle sine wave of
1 kHz frequency and 500 mVpp. On PZT3, a frequency-swept
sine waveform from 300 Hz to 2 kHz, with a 20 ms sweep time
and 500 mVpp was applied.
Figure 4(a) shows the 3D spatial-temporal domain demodu-
lation results, from 100 to 400 m positions along the fiber. It
can be seen that the vibrations at 170, 220, and 330 m, cor-
responding to the positions of PZT1, PZT2, and PZT3, can be Fig. 4. Demodulated waveform when different types of vibration
clearly resolved. Figures 4(b)–4(d) compare the demodulated events were applied simultaneously on PZT1, PZT2, and PZT3.
(a) 3D plot of spatial-temporal domain demodulated signals from
signal (red curves) with the actual waveform (blue curves) ap-
100 to 400 m positions along the fiber. A comparison between the
plied on the three PZTs, respectively. The results show that the demodulated signal (red) and the actual waveforms (blue) at a position
actual signal at all positions can be well detected and correctly of (b) 170, (c) 220, and (d) 330 m.
retrieved simultaneously with almost no distortion. (The cor-
relation coefficient is 0.9976).
A sinusoidal signal with 300 mVpp and 1 kHz frequency
was then applied on PZT1 to calibrate the demodulation the waveform can be demodulated with a backgroundp noise
SNR. Figure 5(a) plots the reconstructed temporal domain level of ∼ − 61 dB rad2 ∕Hz, i.e., 8.91 × 10−4 rad∕ Hz.
signal with its power spectrum shown in Fig. 5(b). The inset Moreover a SNR of 49.17 dB is achieved. Here the SNR is
in Fig. 5(a) clearly shows the interference pattern. It can be seen calculated as SNR  10 × log10 P signal ∕P noise , where P signal
that the power spectrum has a carrier frequency of 50 kHz and P noise is the power density of the 1 kHz sinusoidal signal
(heterodyne frequency), and the vibration-induced phase and the background noise, respectively.
change is modulated to the two sidebands. Figures 5(c) and The dynamic range of our system was further measured by
5(d) show, respectively, the demodulated phase signal [Φt] applying on each PZT a sinusoidal voltage (at 1 kHz frequency)
in temporal and frequency domain. Figure 5(d) shows that with voltage varying from 5 mVpp to 7 Vpp. The blue dia-
monds, red circles, and black triangles in Fig. 6(a) show the
measurement data on PZT1, PZT2, and PZT3, respectively,
with solid lines their linear fitting. For all PZTs, the minimum
detectable amplitude of the phase change (defined by
SNR  1) is ∼0.1 rad (corresponding to ∼2.5 nε strain mea-
surement resolution, some 10 times higher than previous work
[13]), and the maximum detectable amplitude is ∼104 rad
(limited by the sampling rate of the heterodyne signal, i.e., the
pulse repetition rate f r [17]), showing a dynamic range of
60 dB. It can also be seen that for all PZTs that the measure-
ment data fit excellently with a linear function (with R 2 
0.9998, 0.9996, and 0.9999, respectively, for each PZT), with
the slope obtained as 14.73, 20.86, and 17.86 rad/V, approx-
Fig. 3. Experimentally collected backscattered traces (blue) and re- imately agreeing with the 5∶7∶6 ratio of the fiber length
constructed interference signal (red) in temporal domain. wrapped on the PZTs.
 Letter
Fig. 5. (a) Reconstructed temporal domain interference signal and
(b) its power spectrum when a sinusoidal signal with 1 kHz frequency
and 300 mVpp was applied on PZT1. (c) Corresponding demodulated
temporal domain signal and (d) its power spectrum. PSD, power
spectral density.
Fig. 6. (a) Demodulated amplitude versus voltage for 1 kHz fre-
quency sinusoidal wave. (b) Demodulated amplitude versus driving
frequency for 100 mVpp.
Finally, we measured the frequency response of the sensor by
fixing the sinusoidal voltage acting on each PZT at 100 mVpp
and varying the driving frequency. Figure 6(b) plots the
demodulated amplitude versus frequency. Again, the blue
diamonds, red circles, and black triangles represent the exper-
imental data from PZT1, PZT2, and PZT3, respectively. The
increase of amplitude starting from ∼10 kHz arises from
resonance peak of the PZTs we used in the experiment
(∼24 kHz). It can be seen that our system can properly
demodulate the signal from 20 Hz to 25 kHz. As a discussion,
Vol. 42, No. 3 / February 1 2017 / Optics Letters 445
in our system, the maximum detectable frequency is given by
half of the heterodyne frequency (50 kHz). The demodulation
algorithm requires the sampling rate of the heterodyne signal
(i.e., the pulse repetition rate f r ) to be more than four times
the heterodyne frequency, in order to ensure that both the sine
and cosine carrier waves in the demodulation algorithm [see
Fig. 1(b)] are correctly constructed. The upper range of the
heterodyne frequency is therefore limited by the pulse repeti-
tion rate, which is determined by the fiber length L via the
relation f r < c∕2nL (∼220 kHz in our case), where c is the
speed of light in vacuum, and n is the mode index of SMF.
Given f r , the minimum detection frequency is determined
by the longest time duration of data collection, thus, the num-
ber of spatial traces (M) collected in one experiment. In our
case, M  104 (limited by the memory size of DAQ), giving
a minimum detection frequency of f r ∕M  20 Hz.
In summary, we report a waveform-retrieved Φ-OTDR
acoustic sensor using double pulses and heterodyne demodu-
lation. Without any type of averaging, the system can simulta-
neously retrieve the waveform of multiple acoustic signalspwith
a background noise level as low as 8.91 × 10−4 rad∕ Hz,
offering a SNR of 49.17 dB at 1 kHz. The frequency range
of the system is measured from 20 Hz to 25 kHz, and the
dynamic range is ∼60 dB. The reported system is expected
to greatly benefit the practical applications of DOFAS.
Funding. National Natural Science Foundation of China
(NSFC) (61327812).
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