Fiber sensing control device
OwnerMijail Szczerbaninventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A fiber sensing control device (FSCD) is provided for protecting a network infrastructure in an optical fiber network against intrusive fiber sensing. The FSCD resides on an optical fiber cable at a boundary between the first network segment containing the network infrastructure that is to be protected and a neighboring network segment. The FSCD comprises at least one blocking element that can block sensing of backscattered light on at least one optical fiber of the optical fiber cable.
Claims20
A system comprising at least a first of one or more network segments, wherein at least the first network segment comprises:
- a network infrastructure (105);
- at least one optical fiber cable (115, 120) communicatively connected to the network infrastructure;
- and
- one or more fiber sensing control devices (FSCDs) (100) for control of fiber sensing of the first network segment;
- wherein:
- each of the FSCDs is located on a respective one of the optical fiber cables at a boundary between the first network segment and a region of said respective one of the optical fiber cables that is vulnerable to fiber sensing;
- each of the FSCDs is dedicated for the purpose of controlling the fiber sensing on at least one fiber (115, 120) of its respective optical fiber cable;
- and
- each of the FSCDs comprises at least one blocking element (125, 130, 240) that is controllable to block sensing of backscattered light on at least one fiber under control of said FSCD by blocking injected fiber-sensing probe pulses from entering the first network segment from the vulnerable region, and/or by blocking fiber-sensing backscattered light from entering the vulnerable region from the first network segment.
A method of permissively controlling fiber sensing of a network infrastructure (105) situated within at least a first network segment of a communication network, comprising activating at least one fiber-sensing control device (FSCD) (100) located on a respective optical fiber cable at a boundary between the first network segment and a neighboring network segment in a region of said respective optical fiber cable that is vulnerable to fiber sensing,
- wherein:
- the at least one FSCD is dedicated for the purpose of controlling fiber sensing on one or more fibers (115, 120) of its respective optical fiber cable;
- and
- the activating of the at least one FSCD comprises causing each of one or more blocking elements (125, 130, 240) to block sensing of backscattered light on one or more fibers under control of said at least one FSCD by blocking injected fiber-sensing probe pulses from entering the first network segment from the vulnerable region, and/or by blocking fiber-sensing backscattered light from entering the vulnerable region from the first network segment.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.