Distributed fiber optic sensor placement procedure

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11971294-B2
Application number	US-202117406022-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 18, 2021
Priority date	Aug 19, 2020
Publication date	Apr 30, 2024
Grant date	Apr 30, 2024

Abstract

Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that employ a distributed fiber optic sensor placement procedure that advantageously provides a desirable sensor coverage over a network at minimal cost.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A distributed fiber optic sensor placement method comprising:
providing a fiber optic network comprising a set of nodes and a set of fiber optic links defined by G(V, E) where G is the fiber optic network, V is the set of nodes, and E is the set of links;
for each node in G(V, E),
determine all possible sensing routes (all_route_set) in the fiber optic network; and
determine the minimum set of sensing routes in the alt_route_set that fully cover all the links in the fiber optic network; and

determining sensor placement locations to be at either one of two ends of a sensing route that is within the minimum set of sensing routes in the alt_route_set that fully cover all the links in the fiber optic network; and
deploying the sensors at the sensor placement locations so determined.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining a set of possible sensing routes for a given node in the fiber optic network when there is no existing sensing route defined for the given node.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein a route is only added to all_route_set when that route simultaneously contains no loop and a distance of the route is less than a sensing range limit of the sensor being placed.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining a set of possible sensing routes for a given node in the fiber optic network when there are existing sensing route defined for the given node.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the fiber optic network include a network controller that is configured to execute the method and a user configurable fiber optic connector switch that optically connects a sensor to a node.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the network controller communicates network configuration instructions to the nodes included in the fiber optic network.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the nodes receive the network configuration instructions and in response locally configure including placement of sensor(s) and/or fiber optic links through the fiber optic connector switch.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the sensors receive the network configuration information and configure respective sensing settings and data reporting.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the number of sensors deployed is defined by:

min
:

∑

s
,

d
∈
V

θ

s
,
d

for the network infrastructure G(V, E), where V is the set of nodes; E is the set of links; R: the sensing range limit of a given sensor; d ij : the distance of link (i, j); w ij : the distance of the weight of link (i, j), which is obtained by d ij /R;

wherein the following Boolean variables are determined:
θ s,d : 1 if a sensor is deployed at node S, with termination point at node d, where s, d∈V; 0 otherwise;
r s,d,ij : 1 if the sensing fiber route between S and d passes though link (i,j), where r s,d,ij ∈V; 0 otherwise;

and the following constraints are considered:

∑

i
,

j
∈
V

r

s
,
d
,
i
,
j

·

w

i
,
j

≤

θ

s
,
d

,

∀
s

,

d
∈
V

∑

s
,

d
∈
V

r

s
,
d
,
i
,
j

+

∑

s
,

d
∈
V

r

s
,
d
,

j
.
i

≥
1

,

∀
i

,

j
∈
V

∑

i
,

j
∈
V

r

s
,
d
,
i
,
j

-

∑

i
,

j
∈
V

r

s

Assignees

• Nec Lab America Inc
• Nec Corp

Inventors

• Ji Philip
• Wang Ting
• Ye Zilong

Classifications

• G01H9/004 Primary

  using fibre optic sensors (light guides per se G02B6/00, acousto-optical devices specially adapted for gating or modulating in optical wave guides G02F1/125) · CPC title

• G02F1/295

  {Analog deflection from or} in an optical waveguide structure] · CPC title

• H04B3/46

  Monitoring; Testing · CPC title

• H04B17/00

  Monitoring; Testing (of line transmission systems H04B3/46; arrangements for monitoring or testing transmission systems employing electromagnetic waves other than radio waves H04B10/07) · CPC title

• G01D5/35358

  using backscattering to detect the measured quantity · CPC title