Enhanced-Reach Polarization Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry Technique for Fibre Optical Infrastructure Monitoring

This interdisciplinary research is focused on constructing and demonstrating enhanced-reach polarization optical time-domain reflectometer (POTDR) for monitoring single-mode fibre optical communication lines. An optical signal state of polarization measurements enables several new possibilities for real-time monitoring solutions in fibre optics. However, there is no commercial equipment available to determine the location in fibre optical cable where the light polarization state changes. The authors present a monitoring technique of an optical signal state of polarization based on reflected signal time-amplitude analysis with improved operation parameters, namely, timing resolution (2 to 3 ps RMS) and amplitude measurement resolution of nanosecond scale pulses (8 to 10 bits) for monitoring of fibre optical communication lines. Additionally, the demonstrated POTDR provides a considerable optical fibre line measurement reach of up to 40 km.