Amplifier dynamics compensation for brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry

1. A distributed sensing system employing Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (BOTDR) that compensates for online amplifier dynamics of an optical fiber, said, said system comprising:

a generator that produces a forward-propagating optical signal over the optical fiber; and

a receiver that detects backward-propagating a Brillouin back-scattered optical signal; and

a feedback control circuit that compensates for online amplifier dynamics by providing feedback to an arbitrary waveform generator;

wherein the generator includes an input laser, an output of which is optically coupled to an optical modulator that is electrically driven by an output of the arbitrary waveform generator;

wherein the receiver includes a coherent receiver comprising an optical hybrid followed by photodiodes whose output electrical photocurrents are sampled by analog-to-digital converter(s), the outputs of which are used to determine temperature and/or strain information along the optical fiber;

wherein a local oscillator included in the coherent receiver is supplied by a same laser that is used to produce the forward-propagating signal; and

the local oscillator is optically coupled to an optical modulator driven by an electrical sine wave such that its center frequency is shifted to a center frequency of the Stokes or anti-Stokes wavelength of the Brillouin backscattered signal.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the optical fiber includes Raman amplifiers and/or remote optically pumped amplifiers.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the amplitude of the forward-propagating signal is measured and the difference between the measured signal amplitude and desired signal amplitude is used to adjust an output waveform of the arbitrary waveform generator.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the center frequency of the Stokes or anti-Stokes wavelength is ±10.9 GHz from the center frequency of the generated, forward-propagating optical signal.