Single and double distributed optical amplifier fiber bus networks with wavelength-division multiplexing for photonic sensors

Two different optical fiber bus networks are compared and demonstrated expe rimentally as means of gathering information from four wavelength-division- multiplexed photonic sensors. Both topologies include distributed amplifica tion, which allows one to overcome the limitation in the maximum number of sensors that can be multiplexed in a single structure. Results obtained wit h a dual-bus topology are compared with those achieved with a single-bus ne twork. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America.