Interferometric vibration sensor using phase-generated carrier method.

An interferometric fiber-optic vibration sensing system using the phase-generated carrier (PGC) method is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensing section consists of a Sagnac interferometer combined with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, a length of sensing fiber is shared between the two interferometers. The PGC demodulation scheme is used to demodulate the time-varying phase shifts induced by vibrations. Spatial information can be extracted from the demodulated results. A prototype sensing system with a 628 m long sensing fiber has been tested and a spatial resolution better than 12 m is successfully achieved.