Compensation technology for a novel reflex optical fiber temperature sensor used under offshore oil well

摘要

We propose a semiconductor absorption optical fiber temperature sensor adapted to offshore explorations. The sensing mechanism relies on the well-known temperature induced shift of the optical absorption edge of GaAs. The sensor system uses a common-path reference measurement method combined with a node-type error compensation technology. This allows to correct for errors caused by fluctuations of the light intensity level, by differences in and variations of the detector responsiveness and by the amplification of the processing circuitry. Preliminary experimental results show the feasibility of our approach and indicate that we can achieve a temperature measurement uncertainty of +/-0.2 degreesC. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. [References: 7]