DISTRIBUTED POF SENSORS FOR STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING IN CIVIL CONSTRUCTION APPLICATIONS.

In this paper, a cost-efficient distributed fiber optic measurement system based on Rayleigh scattering is presented. The distributed digital incoherent optical frequency domain reflectometry (I-OFDR) method is developed for detection of significantly large strain in the range from 3 % up to 10 % as required by end users. For this purpose, a vector network analyzer used in the I-OFDR is replaced by a compact and cost-effective digital data acquisition system. This digital emitting/receiving unit enables the recording of the complex transfer function carrying information about the local deformations along the entire sensing fiber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]