International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 12

ISSN: 2321-8169
4070 - 4074

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

A Novel Approach for Simple Distributed Brillouin Scattering Modeling for

Temperature and Strain Sensing
Mandeep Kaur

Prof. Navpreet Kaur

Student, M-Tech, ECE

IET Bhaddal, roopnagar
Punjab, India
er.mandeepkaur85@gmail.com

Assistant Prof., Dept. of ECE

IET Bhaddal, roopnagar
Punjab, India
navpreet.ec35@ietbhaddal.edu.in

Abstract Distributed fiber optic technology offers the capability to measure strain and deformation at thousands of points along a single fiber up
to tens of kilometers. This is of particular interest for the monitoring in the geotechnical structures where it allows the detection and localization of
ground movements.This paper presents the analysis by simulation of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in optical fibres. Brillouin scattering

refers to the scattering of a light wave by an acoustic wave. When this process occurs in an optical fibre, the back-scattered light
suffers a frequency shift (the Brillouin frequency) which is dependent on the temperature and strain of the fibre. The behaviour of
stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fibres are studied through the backscatter signals. The analysis of parameters affecting backscattered signal
power is presented. All the developed simulation models exhibit exceptional analysis accuracy as verified through comparison with the published
measurement results
Keywords-Brillouin scattering; MATLAB; temperature; strain; sensing

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I.

INTRODUCTION

Optical fiber has advanced rapidly in current technologies

and has found many important applications in recent years.
Optical fiber is a physical medium that experiences
geometrical (size, shape) and optical (refractive index, mode
conversion) changes when subjected to perturbation, which
become the essence of distributed fiber optic sensing [1]. Of
particular interest, temperature and strain can be sensed by
optical fiber over long distances. Any change in temperature
or strain causes the refractive index of silica (material of
optical fibres) to change in response to such variations. At
high guided light intensity, a nonlinear effect, namely
stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), is also be affected by
the change in refractive index [1]. This change is registered as
a change in Brillouin shift, as well as the backscattered
Brillouin power. The distribution of temperature and strain
over long distances can thus be obtained by measuring the
change in these parameters. Such sensors are also known as
distributed fiber sensors. This paper focuses on simulation of
intrinsic distributed fiber optic sensors based on Brillouin
scattering for temperature and strain sensing. The Brillouin
fiber sensor utilises optical time domain reflectometry
(OTDR) for sensing signal detection, as illustrated in Fig. 1.
The behaviors of the Brillouin and Rayleigh scattering in the
OTDR system are studied for various system conditions, such
as laser power, line width, in terms of backscattered signal
power through computer simulations. The influence of the
dominant noise source, which is coherent Rayleigh noise
(CRN), is also incorporated in the simulations and thorough
analyses are performed to identify ways for improvement to
system sensitivity. The characteristics of backscatter signals
when affected by the variation in temperature and strain are
studied. The simulation results are compared to the published
measurement to verify the accuracy of the developed model.
Distributed fiber optic sensing has been one of the vital fiber
optic technologies developed for sensor applications [2].
Distributed sensing, particularly using Brillouin signal, is
highly preferable due to its capability of extracting
information such as temperature and strain continuously along

the sensing fiber. An accurate model of the device will be a

useful tool that enables proper design of a distributed sensor
system. This will provide valuable information on the optical
and physical limitations, such as the required optical power of
laser, optimum sensing fiber length and measurement ranges.
Besides SBS, there also exists a linear scattering, called
Rayleigh scattering [3]. The nonlinear Brillouin scattering has
a power threshold much above the occurrence of the linear
Rayleigh scattering. Therefore, the Rayleigh scattering will
always present and the coherent fluctuating backscattered
signal will corrupt the Brillouin signal. In order to obtain
accurate response of the sensor, the influence of the Rayleigh
noise should be taken into consideration. Fiber optic sensors
have proven to be ideal transducers for structural monitoring.
Being durable, stable and insensitive to external perturbations
[2], they are particularly interesting for the long-term health
assessment of civil and geotechnical structures. Many different
fiber optic sensor technologies exist and offer a wide range of
performances and suitability for different applications. The
most widely used sensing techniques include point sensors
(Fiber Bragg Gratings and Fabry-Perot interferometers), longgauge sensors (SOFO) and distributed sensors (Raman and
Brillouin scattering sensors). These sensing technologies are
now widely used in routine application for health monitoring
of structures such as bridges, buildings, monuments, tunnels,
dams, dykes, pipelines, landslides and many others. This
contribution reviews these systems and technologies and
presents some significant application examples, in particular to
Bridges, Buildings, Geostructures and Pipelines. The global
energy demand is constantly growing. It forces major actors in
the field to access new resources which can be remote, in
harsh environment or deeper water depth, and which need to
be transported over longer distances. Despite extremely
challenging environmental conditions, energy transport
structures must show reliability and efficiency. Similarly, civil
engineering is also facing monitoring challenges, to survey the
evolution and guarantee the safety of existing structures aging
Beyond their original design life time or to closely monitor the
long term stability of surrounding neighborhood during new
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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 12

ISSN: 2321-8169
4070 - 4074

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
sites construction. Nowadays, fiber optic distributed sensing,
based on temperature and strain dependence of optical fiber
parameters, is seen as an effective, viable and reliable solution
for asset integrity monitoring. Using specifically designed
sensing cables together with stimulated based Brillouin optical
time domain analyzers (BOTDA), fiber based monitoring
solutions provide functionalities such as flow assurance,
thermal management and leak detection as well as ground
movement, pipeline deformation and vibration or structural
deformation of large structures in different industries [4].
II.

equations account for propagation losses of the signal and

pump power/intensities, respectively.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Scattering mechanisms:
The scattering of an incident light wave by the acoustic
phonon of a medium is the essence of Brillouin scattering.
When this process occurs in an optical fiber, the backscattered
light undergoes frequency shift known as the Brillouin shift.
Since the frequency shift and the backscattered power of a
Brillouin scattering are sensitive to the temperature and strain,
it becomes a very useful effect to build fiber optic sensors. The
progress of Brillouin scattering in optical fibers, of length z,
is governed by a set of two coupled equations under steadystate condition.[11] They are called rate equations, as given
below:

Where IP, IS, gB and represent the pump intensity, the

Stokes intensity, the Brillouin gain coefficient and the losses at
pump/Stokes frequencies, respectively. The Brillouin gain is
described by the first term on the right-hand side of Eq. (1),
whereas the pump depletions integrated in the first term on the
right hand side of Eq. (2). The second terms of the above

Where Pi is the launched pump power, vg is the group velocity

Within the fiber and R is the Rayleigh scattering coefficient. In
this equation, S is the fraction of captured optical power.
Coherent Rayleigh noise (CRN) is due to the interference
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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 12

ISSN: 2321-8169
4070 - 4074

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
between the light backscattered at different positions along the
fiber [4]. The accuracy of the measurements is degraded by
fluctuations in the backscattered Rayleigh signals that are
triggered by CRN. The root-mean-square (rms) CRN as
fraction of the Rayleighsignal, fCRN can be expressed as

comparison purpose, the results from the published work [18]

are also presented in Fig. 4(b). From the perception, both
results are precisely comparable, hence further checking that
our proposed algorithm is unquestionably right. Moreover, the
diagrams additionally show that there is an optimum fibre
length to achieve the highest possible scattered wave
depending on the power of the injected signal, which makes
this simulation very useful for designing process. It can be
concluded that for higher signal powers, the optimum fibre
length is shorter than for smaller ones.

Where vg is the group velocity of light in fiber, z is the spatial

resolution, and v is the frequency-shifted bandwidth of a
source.
In MATLAB, a function for the above ordinary differential
equations can be defined as follows:
function yp=edfa_ode(t,y)
global PpsatPssat alphas alphap
Pp1=y(2)/Ppsat;
Ps1 = y(1)/Pssat;
yp1 = (Pp1-1)*alphas .* y(1) ./ (1+2*Ps1+Pp1);
yp2 = -(Ps1+1)*alphap .* y(2) ./ (1+2*Ps1+Pp1);
yp=[yp1, yp2]';
The main codes, call up a function to solve the ODEs. The
MATLAB command ode 45 performs a direct numerical
integration of a set of differential equations I_ = f (z, I), I (z0)
=I0 from z0 to some final distance zf. The main codes pass the
defined values to the function. The function uses given
parameters to solve the set of ODEs and returns the answer.
Then the intensities are extracted and processed to get the
output. Ode 45 uses simultaneously fourth and fifth order
RungeKutta formulas to make error estimates and adjust the
time step accordingly. In simulations, only specific boundary
conditions are known, particularly, the initial value of the
pump Pp (0), and the end value (i.e. evaluated at z = L or end
of the fibre under test) of the Stokes Ps (L) power. Therefore,
the developed MATLAB codes must be able to estimate the
value of the initial Stokes power, Ps (0) as accurate as possible
to yield true graphs.
III.

RESULTS

The pump and Stokes waves propagation are simulated over

a 30-km-long silica fibre, which are based on the same values
Used in for all simulation parameters. Specifically, the
Pump power, Pp (0) = 4.2 mW, the Brillouin gain coefficient,
gB= 1.21011 m/W, the mode effective area, Aeff= 86 _m2,
the fibre attenuation constant, = 0.217 dB/km, and the initial
Stokes intensity, Ps (0) = 1.726 mW. The results of the
simulations are shown in Fig. 3(a), whereas the graph
published in [10] is shown in Fig. 3(b).It can be obviously
seen that the recreation results repeat precisely the privilege
diagram, in this manner approves that the created codes are
right. Another useful analysis is simulation of the optical
power of the scattered (i.e. Stokes) wave in fibre with various
lengths, L for different spontaneous Stokes powers at the
beginning of the scattering occurrence (i.e. Ps (L)). For this
simulation, the same parameters as in the previous section are
used, and the results are shown in Fig. 4(a). For further

Fig. 3. The results of simulation using (a) the developed

MATLAB codes, and (b) from reference [18].of pump and
Stokes wave evolution over 30 km-long silica fibbers.

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IJRITCC | December 2014, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org

_______________________________________________________________________________________

International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 12

ISSN: 2321-8169
4070 - 4074

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
simulations for distributed temperature and strain sensing
have been presented, with special emphasis on the problem
of coherent Rayleigh noise affecting the sensitivity of
measurements. A useful analysis is simulation of the optical
power of the scattered (i.e. Stokes) wave in fiber with
various lengths, L for different spontaneous Stokes powers at
the beginning of the scattering occurrence (i.e. Ps (L)). For
this simulation, the same previous parameters are used, and
the results are presented here. For further comparison
purpose, we compare our current results with previously
published experimental results. From the observation, both
results are exactly similar, thus further verifying that our
proposed algorithm is definitely correct. Additionally, the
graphs also indicate that there is an optimum fiber length to
achieve the highest possible scattered wave depending on the
power of the injected signal, which makes this simulation
very useful for designing process. It can be concluded that
for higher signal powers, the optimum fiber length is shorter
than for smaller ones [18].
VI REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Fig. 4. SBS measurement on silica optical fiber from (a)

Simulations from the developed MATLAB codes, and (b)
from [18].
IV. CONCLUSION
Distributed optical fiber sensors perform an efficient means
of obtaining multipoint measurements compared to discrete
sensors. Recently, Brillouin based distributed sensors have
gained increasing popularity, due to their scientific potential
and economic competitiveness with rival sensing
technologies. Such popularity has emerged from their
possible use in long range sensing applications. To
compensate for variations in the Brillouin power due to
fluctuations in the input power or to fiber attenuation, and
bend or splice loss along the sensing fiber, the measured
Brillouin power trace is typically normalized by the Rayleigh
backscattered signal, which experience almost the same loss
as the Brillouin signal. This ratio is known as the Landau
Placzek ratio (LPR).In this paper; the simulations of
Brillouin and Rayleigh scattering in time-domain
reflectometry configuration have been demonstrated
satisfactorily. The programming codes describing true
scattering behaviors have been successfully synthesized. The
accuracy of the simulations has been verified through
comparisons with published experiment results. The

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

F. Yu, S. Yin, Fiber Optic Sensors, Marcel-Dekker, New

York, USA, 2002, ISBN0-8247-0732-X.
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simultaneous interrogation of distributed strain and
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sensing with 1-cm spatial resolution by correlation-based
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K.D. Souza, P.C. Wait, T.P. Newson, Characterization of
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efficient shooting method for fiber amplifiers and lasers,
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stimulated Brillouin scattering in polymer optical fibres, in:
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pp. 175178.
T. Schneider, D. Hannover, M. Junker, Investigation of
Brillouin scattering in optical fibers for the generation of
millimeter waves, Journal of Light wave Technology 24
(2006) 295304.
S. Azizan, M. M. Shahimin, and S. A. Z. Murad, "Simple
distributed Brillouin Scattering Modelling for temperature
and strain sensing," in 2012 IEEE Symposium on Business,
Engineering and Industrial Applications,

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_______________________________________________________________________________________

International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 12

ISSN: 2321-8169
4070 - 4074

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
VI. BIOGRAPHIES
Er. Mandeep Kaur received the
B.Tech degree in Electronics and
Communication engineering from
Amritsar College of Engineering and
Technology, Amritsar in 2007 and
Pursuing M.Tech in Electronics and
Communication engineering
From IET Bhaddal, Punjab. She has a teaching experience of
5. She is presently working as a Lecturer in Electronics &
Communication Engineering Department, Doaba Group of
Colleges, Kharar (Mohali, Punjab).
Navpreet Kaur is currently working
as an Assistant Professor in IET
Bhaddal, Ropar, and Punjab. She is
guiding many M-Tech thesis. She has
more than 03 years of teaching
experience and published 1 Journal &
2 International Conferences

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