Influence of Doppler frequency shift induced by environmental perturbations on sensing performance of OFDR

Doppler frequency shift due to natural environmental perturbation has recently been considered as an important limit on the sensing performance of optical frequency domain reflectometry. Here we study both theoretically and experimentally the underlying mechanism for the influence of natural perturbations. It is verified that the frequency jitter due to Doppler effect has a more significant impairment than that due to the total delay change within one sweep period. From a practical point of view, it will probably become one dominant noise source and impart a severe limit in precision and effectiveness.