Brillouin optical reflectometer with a Brillouin active filter

A new scheme of a fibre-optic Brillouin reflectometer is experimentally studied, in which the spectral line of spontaneous Brillouin scattering is selected by an active Brillouin filter represented by the tested fibre itself. To improve the reflectometer characteristics, a cyclic code and Raman amplification of the scattering signal are applied. With an averaging time of 5 min, scanning of 25 km of fibre with a spatial resolution of 4 m and a sampling resolution of 1 m are provided. The root-mean-square deviation in determining the Brillouin frequency is less than 1.1 MHz. The reflectometer sensitivity is evaluated with respect to the temperature changes and mechanical deformation.