Remote water sensing system with optical fiber

Abstract

A remote water sensing system and method with optical fiber, comprises a water sensor which is an optical element designed in accordance with the principle of optical path return loss and provided with reusable features to measure the state of having water or not. A monitoring equipment is provided which is an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR), an Optical Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (OFMCW), or a light source power meter, and used to emit monitoring light signals and accept optical signals returned from the water sensor. A signal processing control unit analyzes the optical signal returned from the water sensor to determine whether the monitoring position is touching the water or not. The method can be used in other fields, such as optical closure watering monitoring, telecommunications facilities flooding alarm, and monitoring and alarm for a low-lying area or river water level of a bridge.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.