A metrological comparison of Raman-distributed temperature sensors

Raman distributed temperature sensing techniques (Raman-DTS) are currently meeting a growing interest from the industry as they are a promising and cheap alternative to classical temperature measurements which require the deployment of many sensors. The reliability of the DTS measurements, as well as the traceability to the temperature standards, must be ensured throughout the entire period of use (typically over a few tens of years for nuclear waste repositories and hydraulic structures). LNE, in association with Andra and EDF has developed facilities dedicated to the metrological characterization of Raman DTS devices. A first benchmark performed on five devices from different manufacturers has been performed following experimental procedures which enable a relevant comparison of these instruments. This paper defines the proposed metrological features to be evaluated for each Raman DTS system, and presents a ranking method enabling to provide useful pieces of information to the final users for the selection of the most appropriate device to the requirements of their applications.