Abstract:

Compared to traditional sensors such as electric, magnetic, mechanical and gas sensor, optical fiber sensors have many advantages and been applied in many fields. Optical fiber sensor can achieve sensing and signal transmission simultaneously. At present, the most popular two kinds of fiber optic sensors are fiber grating sensor and distributed fiber sensor, the former of which is dominated by fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor introduced and the latter is dominated by distributed temperature sensor (DTS) based on Raman scattering and distributed temperature and strain sensor (DTSS) based on Brillouin scattering. Some application examples of optical fiber sensor in geophysical and mining are illustrated, including fiber seismic detector’s application in underground oil exploration, DTS and fiber grating pressure sensor’s application in oil shale exploration, fiber optic sensor’s application in smart well and fiber gas sensor’s application in subsurface coal mine safety monitoring.Fiber sensor’s current issues (are poor normalization,low yield,et al) and its future development is fiber optic sensors with special structure or in special purpose.

Key words: fiber optics, fiber sensor, fiber Bragg grating, distributed fiber, geophysical and mining