Distributed optical fiber sensing with Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) technology offers a means for continuous sensing along an optical fiber with spatial resolution as fine as a few millimeters. Foil strain gauges and thermocouples offer inexpensive point sensing techniques. However, when more than one sensing point is needed, installation and wiring can quickly become impractical. Distributed fiber sensing with enables thousands of sensing points with a single, unaltered optical fiber. We will review the basic theory enabling distributed fiber sensing using OFDR and show data from several example applications to illustrate the capability of the technology.
