Patent ID: 7639902

Claim:
A method for providing a reflectometer system for detecting the location of a fault or break in an optical fiber, and/or quality of a optical fiber connector interfaces, and/or insertion loss of an optical fiber, and/or the insertion loss of a complete optical system, comprising the steps of: successively generating a first plurality of microwave signals each having a different frequency ranging f 1 , f 2 , f 3 . . . f n , respectively, where n=1, 2, 3, . . . ∞; modulating an optical carrier beam with said first plurality of microwave signals for converting the latter into a plurality of optical signals each having a different frequency; successively directing said plurality of optical signals against an optically reflective surface of interest; successively receiving successive ones of said plurality of optical signals reflected from said optically reflective surface; successively converting the received reflected said plurality of optical signals into a plurality of second microwave signals; successively performing a fast Fourier transform on said plurality of second microwave signals to convert them from the frequency domain to the time domain; and successively processing the time domain based plurality of second microwave signals to extract information of interest relative to said optically reflective surface.