Patent ID: 8502964

Claim:
A chaotic optical time domain reflectometer comprising: a chaotic laser transmitter which emit a chaotic laser signal to one end of an optical fiber as a target to be tested; a fiber coupler which divides the chaotic laser signal into the probe signal I and the reference signal II, wherein the probe optical signal I is amplified by an optical amplifier ( 11 ), and then is launched into the test fiber ( 4 ) through an optical circulator ( 3 ); two photodetectors which separately convert the backscattered probe optical signal and the reference optical signal into electrical signals; two A/D converters which separately convert electrical signals from two photodetectors into digital signals; a signal processing device which correlates the probe signal with the reference signal; a display device which displays the measuring results generated by the signal processing device; wherein the chaotic laser signal, generated by the chaotic laser transmitter ( 1 ), is split into the probe signal I and the reference signal II by a fiber coupler ( 2 ), wherein the chaotic laser transmitter ( 1 ) is a chaotic semiconductor laser, wherein the chaotic semiconductor laser further comprising a semiconductor laser with an external optical feedback section ( 12 ) or a semiconductor laser injected by another semiconductor laser, and wherein the external optical feedback section ( 12 ) is a digital reflector or an optical fiber with coated reflective film end or a fiber grating connected to a variable optical attenuator; through an optical circulator ( 3 ), the probe signal I is launched into the test fiber ( 4 ) and the back-reflected probe optical signal I is converted into the electrical signal by a photodetector ( 5 ) and digitized by an A/D converter ( 6 ); the reference optical signal II is converted into the electrical signal by a photodetector ( 7 ) and digitized by an A/D converter ( 8 ); two digital signals from two A/D converters ( 6 ) ( 8 ) are correlated by a signal processing device ( 9 ), the result output is displayed on a display device ( 10 ) wherein the signal processing device ( 9 ) is a digital correlator or a computer.