Patent ID: 8503834

Claim:
An apparatus for distributed pressure sensing, the apparatus comprising: a light guide incorporating a series of Bragg gratings at a series of sensing regions; a plurality of moveable wall portions having opposite first and second sides, each moveable wall portion being positioned so that a change in pressure at one of the sides relative to a pressure at the other side will move the moveable wall portion, the moveable wall portions being coupled to the Bragg gratings so that the movement of each of the moveable wall portions causes a force on at least a corresponding one of the Bragg gratings, resulting in a change in strain of that Bragg grating; and at least one rigid member that is rigidly attached to attachment regions of the light guide, the attachment regions including at least one pair of adjacent first and second attachment regions, the first and second attachment regions separated by at least one of the sensing regions, wherein the at least one rigid member is arranged so that a change in strain of the light guide outside the sensing regions does not produce a change in a strain in the sensing regions, does not produce a change in an optical path length of the Bragg gratings, and does not change an optical response of the apparatus.