With the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as large language models and autonomous driving, the data traffic via optical interconnects in data centers has surged significantly. The stability of the optical interconnects relies on intelligent operation and maintenance (O&M). Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) over fibers enables vibration sensing utilizing existing communication fibers, providing critical support for intelligent O&M in data centers. Compared to sensing in the coherent systems, it is difficult to use phase and state of polarization (SOP) monitoring for vibration detection in intensity-modulation and direct-detection (IM-DD) systems. In this paper, we propose a joint phase-based and SOP-based sensing scheme integrated in IM-DD systems. In the proposed scheme, the received IM-DD communication signals are tapped for sensing with a power ratio of 10%. Then the tapped signals are split for vibration sensing based on SOP and phase, respectively. In the phase-based sensing arm, a circulator, a 3×3 coupler and two Faraday rotating mirrors (FRMs) are used to build an unbalanced Michelson interferometer without phase fading and polarization fading. For the purpose of SOP-based sensing, a polarizer is used to monitor the vibration-induced SOP variations. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme enables vibration sensing based on both phase and SOP across a frequency range of 200 Hz to 10 kHz. Regarding the communication performance, the integration of the sensing system only induces 0.8 dB received optical power penalty. This vibration-sensing scheme based on both phase and SOP can be integrated into pluggable optical modules, providing an efficient and reliable solution for intelligent optical network O&M.
Zhuo et al. (Thu,) studied this question.