Brillouin power spectrum analysis for partially uniformly strained optical fiber

Due to the restriction of the spatial resolution, about 1 m for current commercially available system, strain distribution measured by Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer (BOTDR) is slightly different from the actual one. In this paper, the equation of the Brillouin power spectrum for partially uniformly strained fiber within the spatial resolution is theoretically derived. Based on the derived results, investigation has been made on the shape characteristics of the superposed Brillouin power spectrum, as well as the dependence of the calculated strain of BOTDR on the actual strain of the fiber. It was found that the difference between the calculated strain and the actual strain depends mainly on the strain value of the fiber and the strained length within the spatial resolution for the given distributed sensing system.