Brillouin scattering based distributed sensors for structural applications

Over the past Four years the Fibre Optics Group at the University of New Br unswick has been developing a distributed sensor for use in smart civil str uctures. By using Brillouin loss, the sensor is capable of measuring strain or temperature at any region on a sensing fibre, even those that an kilome ters in length. This paper outlines the development of the sensor system, a nd discusses some of the experiments that have been performed with it. New results are presented that demonstrate 100 mm spatial resolution under labo ratory conditions. This represents a four-fold improvement in the spatial r esolution over previously reported results attained with a Brillouin scatte ring based distributed sensor.