Instrumentation development in support of fiber grating sensor arrays
James R. Dunphy, Gary A. Ball, Francis X. D'Amato, Pietro Ferraro, Sabato Inserra, Antonello Vanucci, Mauro Varasi · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1993
This paper discusses the use of fiber gratings as sensing devices and the measurement limitations imposed by conventional laboratory instrumentation. Work that is currently in progress on instrumentation development to alleviate some of these limitations to yield practical, robust systems is discussed. Research activities concerning 2 system configurations are addressed in some detail: (1) sensor arrays in a system based on broadband optical transmitters with narrowband optical receivers using conventional optical filters or acoustically-tuned, integrated optic filters, and (2) sensor arrays in a system based on narrowband, optical transmitters with laser diodes or fiber lasers that make use of fiber gratings as wavelength tuning elements in conjunction with simple, broadband optical receivers.