Distributed fiber-optic sensor for location based on polarization-stabilized dual-Mach-Zehnder interferometer

A novel distributed fiber-optic sensor is proposed and demonstrated, in which two Mach-Zehnder interferometers are used to detect the interference signals with different wavelengths, and one 3 × 3 coupler is deployed to demodulate the time-varying phase change caused by vibration. The novel dual Mach-Zehnder interferometer (DMZI) is composed of two wavelength division multiplexers. Then, a time delay estimation algorithm is designed to construct two related signals using the phase difference, and the two constructed signals are used to obtain vibration position through cross-correlation. Experimental results show that the sensing distance can reach 100 km and the location error is within ±25 m.