Research of Distributed Optical Fiber Temperature Sensor (DTS) System with Optical Switch

Working principle, engineering application and development trends of distributed optical fiber temperature sensor (DTS) system is introduced briefly in his paper. Factors determining length of sensing optical fiber is researched in particularly. In distributed optical fiber temperature sensor system, length of sensing optical fiber is determined by power of laser pulse, loss coefficient and signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the system. Using optical switch can extend sensing length of the system. A driver interface based on MCU chip for a multi-mode prism 1×2 optical switch is designed. DTS system controls the optical switch by sending instruction to RS232 serial interface. Test results shows that the sensing length can be extended to double by embedding 1×2 optical switch.