Performance of Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer with erbium doped fiber amplifier

The performance of Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry (BOTDR) affected by different pump power and direction of erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is experimentally demonstrated. A temperature error of 0.5 °C and spatial resolution of 10 m is obtained over 80 km sensing fiber with EDFA. The temperature resolution and dynamic range of BOTDR with backward pumped EDFA is better than forward pumped EDFA. Within the range of pump power, the resolution of BOTDR can be improved by increasing pump power.