This paper proposes an approach for acoustic emission (AE) source localization in a large marble stone using distributed feedback (DFB) fiber lasers. The aim of this study is to detect damage in structures such as those found in civil applications. The directional sensitivity of DFB fiber laser is investigated by calculating location coefficient using a method of digital signal analysis. In this, autocorrelation is used to extract the location coefficient from the periodic AE signal and wavelet packet energy is calculated to get the location coefficient of a burst AE source. Normalization is processed to eliminate the influence of distance and intensity of AE source. Then a new location algorithm based on the location coefficient is presented and tested to determine the location of AE source using a Delta (Δ) DFB fiber laser rosette configuration. The advantage of the proposed algorithm over the traditional methods based on fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) include the capability of: having higher strain resolution for AE detection and taking into account two different types of AE source for location.

The train-induced vibration response provides a flexible solution for the real-time monitoring deformation of high-speed railway track slab in actual operation. This paper proposes a long-term real-time monitoring method for track slab deformation based on wavelet packet energy (WPE) using fiber optic accelerometers to record train-induced vibration. We found that the vibration response law of track slab deformation could be established by using the WPE of the frequency band covering the first- and second-order frequencies induced by the adjacent carriages. A field test was carried out for more than one year on the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway to investigate the train-induced vibration response law of track slab that was continuously deformed under a long-term temperature load. The maximum values of the WPE characteristic index appeared in winter and summer, and they were positively correlated with the temperature difference between the air environment and the track slab under the daily temperature load. These results were demonstrated to be consistent with the track slab deformation law for long-term and daily temperature loads. The novel method based on fiber optic accelerometers and WPE provides a new method for the long-term and real-time monitoring of track slab deformation.

A broadband optical fiber seismometer based on FBG resonator is proposed for earthquake monitoring. The principle and key technique, high-resolution ultralow-frequency wavelength interrogation by dual-laser swept frequency and beat frequency method, are discussed and analyzed. From the simulation and test results, the seismometer works at broadband range from 0.01 Hz to 10 Hz with a sensitivity of better than 330 pm/g and the wavelength resolution of the interrogation system is better than 0.001 pm/√Hz from 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz. A three-channel correlation method is used to measure the self-noise of the seismometer. It reaches a noise level of 2.7 × 10-7 ms-2/√Hz@0.1 Hz, which is lower than the earth's background noise (the new high noise model, NHNM). An earthquake monitoring experiment is conducted in a low noise seismic station. The recorded seismic waves are analyzed, which suggests that the proposed seismometer has the ability to record the close microearthquake and distant great earthquake with a high signal-noise ratio (SNR). This is the first time that a FBG-based middle-long period seismometer with lower self-noise than NHNM and large dynamic range (100 dB) is reported.

A low frequency-noise ring random fiber laser (RFL) based on random Bragg grating array (RBGA) feedback is proposed. A dual-cavity fiber Bragg grating Fabry-Perot (FBG-FP) filter, which matches the wavelength of RBGA, is specially designed. Due to the narrower bandwidth, flatter response and steeper rolloff, the dual-cavity FBG-FP filter can significantly suppress the competition-induced frequency jitter and undesired residual random lasing modes, and contribute to establish stable lasing and further reduce frequency noise of RFL. The frequency noise of the proposed RFL is ∼3 Hz/√Hz above 1 kHz, and the frequency jitter is ∼3.11 × 10 ⁻¹¹ over 10 s. The 3-dB linewidth is ∼490 Hz with a ∼40 dB of optical signal-to-noise ratio.

Fiber optic seismic sensors have important application prospects in the field of earthquake science research and underground structure detection, due to their strong adaptability in harsh environments such as deep wells, seabeds, and glaciers. It has always been one of the key problems to achieve ultra-low noise levels over a wide measurement frequency band for fiber optic seismic sensors. This article reviews two typical low-noise broadband fiber optic seismic sensing techniques, including narrow-linewidth laser frequency scanning and frequency locking sensing technique, laser interferometric phase interrogation technique. The principles are given. The measurement frequency band and noise level are tested and discussed. Recent progresses on crustal deformation observation, earthquake monitoring, water temperature solid tide detection and deep earth structure exploration based on fiber optic seismic sensors are introduced. Finally, the possible research trends are discussed.

In the distributed feedback fiber laser sensor interrogation based on 3×3 coupler, the asymmetry of the 3×3 coupler and the inconsistency of detectors lead to harmonic distortion in the result. This paper presents an improved method that combines the 3×3 coupler and the extended Kalman filter (3×3-EKF method) to effectively suppress the harmonic distortion in real-time. The coefficients of the three ellipses formed by every two-channel interference fringes were estimated using EKF. The system parameters were corrected based on these coefficients to eliminate the dependence on the idealization of 3×3 coupler and detectors. The result shows that the 3×3-EKF method can update the system parameters with a frequency up to 500 kHz. A total harmonic distortion less than 0.1% can be achieved with signal frequency ranging from 20 Hz to 1 kHz. Besides, the system shows a minimum detectable wavelength shift of 3.1 × 10 ^-7 pm/√Hz @ 1 kHz, and a large dynamic range of 135 dB @ 100 Hz.