A novel fiber optic approach is taken in this project to the distributed sensing of forces and temperatures simultaneously at different locations with a single long optical fiber probe. This concept uses temperature- and/or force-dependent stimulated light amplification processes at each sensing point along the fiber probe. The approach is designed to generate, at each sensing point along the fiber, optical signals unaffected or only minimally affected by the magnitude of the forces and/or temperatures at other points along the fiber. In contrast to presently known methods, our approach does not require measurements of the state of polarization of the light at any point along the fiber probe, and it should be implementable with relatively simple instrumentation.The system should find applications in the monitoring of the structural integrity of buildings, bridges, pipelines, and aircraft structures, and for implementing effective process control in a wide variety of industrial processes.fiber optics, sensors, distributed, raman amplificationSTATUS: Phase I Only
