Patent attributes
A method and system for determining strain impressed on an optical fiber at a possibly indeterminate temperature. The fiber (14) is formed with at least two sensors having different strain and temperature characteristics, preferably a Bragg Fabry-Perot sensor having a Fabry-Perot cavity (16) formed between two like Bragg gratings (10, 12) and another Bragg grating 18 of a different pitch written into the Fabry-Perot cavity. Many such pairs can be written if the Bragg gratings reflect in different bands. The fiber is irradiated with broadband light, and the reflection is spectrally separated to produce separate spectra for all sensors. Wavelength shifts from two types of sensors can be correlated with strain and temperature according to predetermined variations of the shifts with known strain and temperature changes.
