OREANDA-NEWS. Yokogawa Meters & Instruments Corporation announces that it has developed the AQ7280 series of optical time domain reflectometers (OTDRs) for the installation and maintenance of fiber-optic cables, and will release a total of nine models for this product series on September 29.

The AQ7280 is a high-performance instrument that is used to measure fiber-optic cable distances and losses and to identify failure locations. The AQ7280 succeeds the high-end AQ7275 OTDR, which has been used for the installation and maintenance of a wide range of network systems, including core, metro, and access networks. For improved efficiency and measurement quality, the AQ7280 has a capacitive touchscreen with the same easy-to-use multi-touch functionality that can be found in smartphones and other handheld devices.

Driven by factors such as the widespread use of smartphones and the increase in video-related Internet traffic, there is a rising need around the world for the installation of fiber-optic cable that is capable of the high-speed transmission of large volumes of data. An ever increasing amount of fiber-optic cable is being installed for core network systems between cities, metro network systems within cities, and access network systems that connect central offices to subscribers.

As OTDRs are used to evaluate installation and maintenance work, it is important to make these devices easy and intuitive to operate so that even operators who are less familiar with fiber optic cable measurement techniques can produce high quality measurements in less time. In addition, there is an increasing need particularly in emerging countries for the ability to measure the very long cable lengths that are typical with core network systems. Also, due to the variety of fiber-optic cables that are in use and the existence of multiple network communications standards, there is a need for OTDR units that are capable of measuring different wavelengths. To meet such needs, Yokogawa has developed the AQ7280.

The AQ7280 OTDR series is planned to meet the CE marking requirements by the end of September.