Patent ID: 9614616
Date: 2017-04-04
CPC Classifications: G01M,H04B

Claim:
1. A communication system, comprising: an optical fiber; an optical transmitter configured to receive an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) signal defining a correlation sequence and to convert the OTDR signal into a wideband optical signal, the optical transmitter further configured to transmit the wideband optical signal through the optical fiber; and a correlation OTDR having a receiver configured to receive and filter optical returns of the wideband optical signal from the fiber, the correlation OTDR configured to correlate samples of the optical returns with the correlation sequence, wherein the wideband optical signal at an output of the optical transmitter has a spectral width sufficiently large for suppressing in the returns beat noise that is within a passband of the receiver, and wherein the wideband optical signal simultaneously spans across the entire spectral width at the output of the optical transmitter.