Distributed fiber-optic vibration sensor using a ring Mach-Zehnder interferometer

A novel distributed fiber-optic vibration sensing system is proposed and demonstrated. By employing a ring Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) structure as the sensing section, both position and frequency can be determined by combining two phase signals from the ring configuration. A spatial resolution better than 38 m is successfully verified in a 1.01 km prototype system of single vibration. Moreover, the feasibility of separately locating multiple vibrations is also theoretically simulated and experimentally investigated.