Design of Fiber-Longitudinal Optical Power Monitor

This paper presents analytical results on the accuracy of fiber-longitudinal optical power monitoring (LPM) at arbitrary positions. To quantify the accuracy, the position-wise variance and power-profile SNR of LPM are defined and analyzed, yielding formulas for these metrics. Using these metrics, we show that various designs and performance predictions of LPM for a given link and estimation conditions are possible in a unified manner. Specifically, the required SNR to detect a given loss event is first presented. Based on this, the design parameters of LPM, such as the sample size and optical power required to detect the loss, are explicitly determined. The performance such as the detectable limit of loss events at individual positions and maximum dynamic range are also specified. These results can be used as a basis for establishing a design principle of LPM.