Novel technique for distributed fibre sensing based on faint long gratings (FLOGs)

A novel approach for fibre distributed sensing is proposed, conceived to match as closely as possible to an ideally responding distributed sensor. It is demonstrated that it can be actually realized using fibre Bragg gratings of extremely low index contrast and continuously printed over the entire fibre length. The concept is experimentally validated over a restricted distance range that proves the huge potentialities of the technique in terms of response and precision.