Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology

ISBN : 978 - 1505606395

Fiber Optics in Sensing and Measurement

Deepak Kumar Mohapatra
Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Gandhi Institute for Education and Technology, Bhubaneswar
deepak.mohapatra99@gmail.com
ABSTRACTWe are living in a world now
which happened to be a so lucid system that no
one ever has anticipated things are becoming
easier day in day out.Optical techniques for
measurementinterferometry, spectrometry and
polarimetryhave long been used in materials
measurement and environmental evaluation. The
optical fiber lends yet more flexibility in the
implementation of these basic concepts. Fiberoptic technology has, for over 30 years, made
important contributions to the science of
measurement. This paper presents a perspective
on these contributions which while far from
exhaustive highlights the important conceptual
advances made in the early days of optical fiber
technology and the breadth of application which
has emerged. There are also apparent
opportunities for yet more imaginative research in
applying guided-wave optics to emerging and
challenging measurement requirements ranging
from microsystems characterization to cellular
biochemistry to art restoration.
1. INTRODUCTION
FIBER OPTICS has undoubtedly had a profound
impact on the communications industry [1]. This
can be traced back to the seminal papers of Kao
and Hockham, and Simon and Spitz [2], [3], who
basically appreciated in the early to mid 1960s that
optical signals could be transmitted along glass or
silica fibers with a loss potentially below that
experienced in coaxial copper cables. Further,
unlike copper where skin effect increases loss with
baseband modulation frequency, the loss in optical
fibers could be maintained for all conceivable
modulation frequencies. A little while later, Dyott
[4] observed that there were regions of zero
dispersion in the transmission characteristic of
silica. The rest is well-documented history
brilliantly encapsulated in Hechts book [1].
But fiber optics was not new in 1965. Glass fibers
had alreadyappeared in ornamental lamps and the
basic ideas of the dielectricwaveguide were well
established. Using optical fibers toguide light to
and from a place at which a measurementwas to
bemade had already emerged and had gone from
concept to practice.The first patents had been filed
on fiber-optic sensing andhad emerged as a
tentative product [5] described in the literature.At
around the same time, Eli Snitzers ever-creative
intellectwas proposing using fiber optics to transmit

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phase-modulated signals[6]the basis of another

important class of fiber-optic sensors. So this brief
paper will present a predominantly historical
perspective on the evolution of research,
development, and application in fiber-optic sensor
technology. From the early beginnings almost 35
years ago, the optical fiber sensor (OFS)
community became infected with communications
euphoria, and by the mid 1970s to the early 1980s
felt OFS technology was the solution to everything.
Realism percolated, though perhaps a little slowly,
and now we know that there are areas of real
application, but that there are still interesting and
relevant problems left to excite the research
community.
II. SENSOR TECHNOLOGY
Sensing and measurement is a specialized art.
Sensor technologies are applications specific. The
thermometer switch which controls your central
heating is totally unsuited to control a cooling
system in your automobile. Sensors all operate in
niche markets. The sensing mechanisms are based
on literally dozens of physical and chemical
phenomena interfaced to electronic signal
conditioning through dozens more custom designed
protocols. The industry is consequently highly
fragmented a source simultaneously of
frustration, challenge, and satisfaction to those
within it. Fiber-optic sensing is therefore
conceptually
orthogonal
to
fiber-optic
communications which involves very large
numbers of essentially the same system
configuration and components. There is very little
spin-off in practice from the communications
industry into sensor technologies. The fiber itself,
some guided-wave components, some, but by no
means all, connectors and some, but by no means
all, sources and detectors are the common
elements. Conceiving and realizing the necessary
mechanical and electronic infrastructure around the
guided-wave components is the major portion of
optical fiber sensor technology. In particular,
packaging is an immense challengeindeed the
case with all sensing techniques.
Sensing techniques have another important generic
feature.Virtually all physical and chemical
phenomena which are usedin the transduction
process are temperature sensitive. Most
measurementsare not concerned with temperature.

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Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology

Consequently,most sensing and measurement
systems must first of all correctfor temperature
variations. This is a perennial issue which hasmost
certainly marked the process of fiber-optic sensor
technology,producing solutions and approaches
with varying degreesof elegance and ingenuity.
Consequently, sensors are never big business, e.g.,
the automobile industry is often perceived as the
enormous market. The worldwide volume is about
50 million vehicles per annum. None of the mass
market sensors in automobiles is worth more than a
few dollars and there are numerous different
suppliers worldwide. Consequently, even in the
automobile industry, small companies or small sub
divisions of major corporations provide the sensors.
There is no homogenous multibillion dollar market
for anything in sensing and measurement
technology.
If we examine fiber sensors specifically, the niches
are currently very narrow, so the few companies
which are operating in this domain, while profitable
and interesting, employ typically 10100 people.
They are also patient. Above all else, sensors have
to work, often in difficult environments ranging
from the physical extremes of aerospace to the
chemical extremes of biomedicine or process
technologies. Sensors take time. A decade from
concept to product is normal. Precision gyroscopes,
for example, can take twice this!

ISBN : 978 - 1505606395

satisfactorily resolved.
There
aresufficient
examples of such problems to continue to stimulate
the fiber-optic sensor community [7], [21][24].
IV. THE FOTONIC SENSOR: INTENSITY
MODULATED SYSTEMS
The Fotonic sensor is described exhaustively in [5]
and was patented somewhat earlier. It is based (Fig.
2) on bifurcated fiber bundles.

Fig. 1.Basic functions of the optical fiber sensor.

III. FIBER SENSOR TECHNIQUES: THE

BASICS
The fiber sensor is illustrated diagrammatically in
Fig. 1. The basic components are simple. Light is
taken to a modulation region using an optical fiber
and modulated therein by physical, chemical, or
biological phenomena, and the modulated light is
transmitted back to a receiver, detected, and
demodulated. Hopefully, there is a one-to-one
correlation between the phenomenon of interest and
the demodulated signal. There are two substantial
issues in realizing a viable optical fiber sensor
technology:
1) to ensure the one-to-one relationship between
the parameter to be measured and the demodulated
signal;
2) to match the technology to the application in
terms of both performance and cost.
The first of these is the simpler one despite the fact
that theimpact of the fibers to and from the
modulation region, variationsin source and detector
characteristics with temperature andtime and the
influence of temperature on the modulation
processare all important.
The second of these must recognize the presenceof
established techniques and in particular must
identifyotherwise insoluble problems which are
important but for technicalreasons have not been

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Fig. 2.Fotonic sensor measuring the position of

a reflector relative to a fiber(bundle) end.
The basic concept is simple. The fraction of light
transmitted between the receive elements in the
bundle and the transmit elements in the bundles
depends on the separation between the reflector and
the bundle itself and is, to a first approximation,
independent of small rotational angles of the target
object, particularly for the high numerical aperture
fibers uniformly illuminated with light from an
incandescent bulb for which the sensor was
originally conceived.
Of course, if the reflectivity of the target changes,
then the transmission ratio also changes. However,
the inventors had foreseen this eventuality and
designed compensation schemes to overcome the
problem. These involved use of two receiving
bundles, one a known distance from the other.. It
was capable ofresolutions in the micrometer range,

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Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology

made no physical contactwith the target, and had
the usual optical advantages concernedwith the
electromagnetic interference and pickup.
This basic sensor has been reinvented in numerous
formats with some regularity ever since. The fiber
bundle concept has been replaced by the use of
individual fibers and the light source has been
increased in intensity by using light-emitting diodes
and superradiant systems. There have been slight
modifications to the intensity fluctuation
compensation scheme. Sometimes separate
transmit and receive fiber locations have been used.
The application context has been changed.

ISBN : 978 - 1505606395

2)Interferometric measurements of the distance

between the end of the optical fiber and the
reflective surface;
3) Configuring the parameter to be measured into a
modulation scheme, which introduces an
amplitude modulation at a frequency
dependent upon the measurand?
The basic principles of these approaches are
illustrated in Fig. 3, and again the initial
demonstrations of these principles date back to the
period between 1975 and 1985 [17][19]. Digital
shaft encoding or longitudinal displacement
measurement operating on a spectral slicing
principle proved to be robust and capable of up to
12-bit accuracy. Mechanical resonatorsvariations
on the vibrating wire gaugeare well established
as precision measurement concepts. A mechanical
strain applied along the axis of the wire changes the
resonant frequency and through measuring this
frequency, the strain may be inferred with the usual
proviso concerning temperature sensitivity. The
optical fiber versions of these resonators use
thermo-optic excitation and with careful design can
operate through fiber links several kilometres in
length.

Fig. 3. Dual-beam all-fiber interferometers used

in sensing normally the interferometer is biased,
dynamically or statistically, to the quadrature
optimum sensitivity point X.
The Fotonic sensor exemplifies much of optical
fiber sensor technology. It was conceived and
demonstrated 35 years ago. It has been frequently
reinvented. It has occasionally been used in earnest
in applications which were not dreamed of when
the idea was originally put forward. It uses simple
intensity modulation and it has within it the
capability if needed for referencing to remove the
impact of fluctuations in reflectivity, fiber loss, and
source output.

(a)

V. PHYSICAL SENSING: MODULATING

LIGHT OUTSIDE THEFIBER
The Fotonic sensor which started the process was
based upon what now would be termed an extrinsic
modulation schemein other words, the fiber is
used to link the optical signal to the sensing point.
In addition to the many variations on the basic
Fotonic sensor, where the signal clearly depends
upon attenuation, a number of other architectures
have been investigated and some exploited using
attenuation independent modulation onto the
optical carrier.
Three basic approaches have been examined:
1)Colour modulation, for example, using spectral
slicing of the radiation from a light-emitting
diode;

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(b)

(c)
Fig. 4. Three intensity insensitive modulation
schemes for optical fiber sensors. (a) Spectral
slicing. (b) Interferometric filtering. (c) Amplitude

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Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology

ISBN : 978 - 1505606395

modulation at a measurand-dependant resonant

frequency.

narrowband
wavelength selective coupler
functions performed by fiber Bragg gratings.

The mechanical engineering of the sensor head is

demanding but these sensorshave now found their
place in very demanding applications,notably the
measurement of pressure down hole in oil
wells.Interferometric measurement systems for
diaphragm displacementhave been based upon both
using the space between thediaphragm and the fiber
end as a FabryPerot cavity and measuringthe
spectral transmission characteristic, and on
exploitingwhite-light interferometry to replicate the
displacement of thediaphragm within the receiver.
In white-light interferometry, anincoherent source
is used to illuminate the measurement
interferometerand fringes are detected at the
receiver only when thepath difference of a
reference interferometer exactly matchesthat of the
measurement. The first demonstration of this
principle[20] highlighted the potential precision
with which thismeasurement could be made in
sensing, and subsequently thebasic principle has
been extensively exploited.

The photorefractive effect can be used to make

periodic structures along the core in optical fiber,
and these periodic structures (Fig. 4) act as highly
selective optical filters. The reflection wavelength
depends on the period of the grating, which in turn
could be modified through temperature and phase
excursions which change the optical path length
within the grating structure. Fiber Bragg gratings is
an extensive subject predominantly with
applications in the communications area for
elements such as wavelength tuning and
stabilization structures and optical filters. Initially,
the gratings were written by sending counterpropagating beams along the fiber, and it was a
decade or thereabouts later that side illumination
techniques using ultraviolet lasers introduced the
necessary flexibility in defining the periodic
structure [22].

VI. FIBER BRAGG GRATING

The photorefractive effect in optical fibers was first
reported during the same very productive era in the
mid 1970s [21].

In the sensor context, fiber Bragg gratings can be

written sequentially at predetermined points along a
single fiber and can also be made to reflect light in
different wavelength bands. Consequently, a linear
array of, say, 16 gratings can provide 16 separate
sensing points, each individually identified through
a spectral slicing technique. Precision measurement
of wavelength in the reflected spectrum, usually
involving a stabilized reference, can then yield the
period of each grating

(a)

Fig. 6. All fiber current monitor and crystalline

current (magnetic field) or voltage (electric field)
fiber sensor architecture.
VII. MEASURING
FIELDS

(b)
Fig. 5. Bragg grating geometry and functions.
The reflected spectrum closely approximates to
the Fourier transform of the grating. (a) Short
broadband reflector/mode coupler. (b) Long

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ELECTROMAGNETIC

Faraday rotation (the dependence of circular

birefringence on magnetic fields) and the electro
optic effect (dependence ofusuallylinear
birefringence on applied electric fields) are wellknown phenomena in the world of optical physics.
With the advent of optical fiber transmission, it was
natural then that the fiber should be used to link an
optical signal to a suitable crystalline material to

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Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology

measure electromagnetic fields. The great benefit
of the fiber link lies potentially in sensing at high
voltage, since current transformers are expensive,
unwieldy, and have very limited frequency
response. It seems that fiber optics could provide
an insulating link to high-voltage areas and make
the measurement using a very broadband detector
with a rapid response interaction mechanism.
Additionally, theFaraday Effect occurs in all
materials, particular the silica ofthe optical fiber, so
perhaps looping the optical fiber along themagnetic
field (Fig. 8) could also produce Faraday rotation.
Measuring electromagnetic fields has developed
into an importantniche for fiber-optic sensing and
again the evolutionfollows the now familiar
pattern. The original references dateback more than
20 years [23], [24] with subsequent engineering
and refinement dealing with the practicalities of
vibration sensitivity,temperature sensitivity, and
packaging
to
protect
fromenvironmental
interference.
VIII. CHEMISTRY AND BIOMEDICINE:
OPTRODES
Colour and chemistry are inherently compatible.
Materials are frequently characterized through their
absorption spectra, much of which lies in the
optical region, and visual indicators exemplified by
litmus paper are well-characterized means of
interrogating materials, especially liquids, for their
content.

Fig. 7. Basic optrode which features in many,

perhaps most, optical fiber chemical sensor
architectures.
Optical fibers have a natural part to play and their
potential
for
chemical
and
biochemical
measurements became recognized within the same
familiar timescale [21], [24]. The term optrode
(Fig. 7) emerged later to describe a device which
uses colour-sensitive intermediate chemistry to
monitor the almost invariably liquid immediate
surroundings. In optrode-based devices, the optics
is usually very simple, and updated versions of the
filter wheel first described in [24] are still used
(though typically using two colours of LED). Most
of the progress in optrode- based devices lies in the

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ISBN : 978 - 1505606395

complex area of immobilization chemistry and in

protective packaging especially for use in
biological systems.
Applications ranging from monitoring of bile in the
digestive tract to blood oxygen and blood pH to
pollutant monitoring in water supplies have now all
been realized. For biomedical sensing, the usual
approach is to incorporate a disposal sensing head,
though for water supply measurement systems,
long-term stability of the sensor chemistry remains
problematic. The intermediate chemistry in
optrodes has the benefit that the sensor can be
made highly specific to a particular species and the
signal from that species can be made to occur
within a wavelength range compatible with optical
fiber technology. Stability in packaging remains an
issue, and more direct measurement systems
eliminating the intermediate chemistry are in
principle more attractive. Direct spectroscopy
therefore has an important role to play in optical
fiber chemical measurement, though this emerged
as a potentially viable technique a decade or so
later than the optrode was first mooted [23]. Gas
spectroscopy remains the most interesting potential
application though the strongest absorption lines
for most species of interest lie outside the
transmission window of optical fiber waveguides.
There are, however, frequently overtones in the
near infrared, and these have been used with some
success in the detection of methane, acetylene,
hydrogen sulphide, and several other species [24].
Once more, while there are niche applications, the
peculiar properties of optical systems must be
recognized. In this context, the very specific
wavelengths required to address the absorption
bands are invariably outside the communications
spectrum, so optical sources with the appropriate
power level and spectral purity remain relatively
special items and are therefore expensive.
However, a sufficiently large array of sensors can
make a system cost competitive, and its selectivity
compared to electrical pellistor technology (which
simply detects flammable gases) can be beneficial.
The low attenuation of optical fibers also facilitates
measurements over a very wide area inaccessible to
more established approaches.
IX. USING OPTICAL FIBERS SENSORS:
THE APPLICATIONS
Sensing and measurement are idiosyncratic nicheoriented activities, and the thought that optical fiber
sensing can solve all measurement problems has
long since disappeared. Numerous niches have
emerged. These range from monitoring pressure
transients in diesel engines, to using white-light
interferometry to measure strain in long-gaugelength (to 50 m) sensors for civil engineering, to
intravenous pressure sensing, to landfill monitoring
for combustible gases.

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The Bragg grating strain gauge is arguably the most
frequently quoted example in the literature, finding
applications to measure strain and/or temperature in
bridges, in composite materials for marine and
aerospace engineering and in down-hole pressure
and
temperature
monitoring.
Numerous
experimental systems based on Bragg grating
technology havebeen demonstrated, and while
these do illustrate the principles,the grating does
remain very expensive equivalent to a straingauge
and true commercial activity remains sparse.
In contrast, the fiber-optic gyroscope is now a
modestly high-volume production subsystem. The
gyroscope first appeared in commercial aircraft
when the Boeing 777 was introduced, where it was
used as an aid to vehicle stabilization. It has also
been used in automobiles as a navigation aid, in
missiles and munitions for guidance systems, and
even in prototype remotely powered lawnmowers
for ultrastraight stripes on football pitches. The
hydrophone too has begun to make its mark where
MachZehnder interferometer configuration can be
made more sensitive with better directional control
and in more flexible packaging configurations than
the piezoceramic equivalent. Distributed sensing
also has identified some of its niches. Distributed
Raman backscatter has found a place in the
Channel Tunnel as a fire-alarm system, in large
process ovens for monitoring temperature profiles,
and in numerous other very specialized applications
where temperature field measurements are
important. Brillouin scatter too has been used to
measure temperature, watching the concrete set in a
major dam project in Switzerland. It has also been
used in earnest to measure strain paradoxically in
telecommunication cables especially in regions
where landslip could cause local stresses which
could compromise cable integrity. The Brillouin
system also shows promise in the oil industry to
monitor the integrity of safety-critical and very
expensive anchors and tethers.
To attempt an exhaustive list of applications is
impractical as well as uninformative. The general
observation that the principles first elucidated a
quarter of a century ago are now emerging in
practice can be applied for many of the techniques
which have been briefly mentioned herein.
Additionally, every application is manifestly
unique and requires quite specific engineering to
translate the concept into reality. Fiber sensing has
emerged as a true parallel to everything else in the
sensing and measurement industry with relatively
small and specialized market opportunities each
with its own specific challenges.
X. WHAT OF THE FUTURE
Guided-wave optics, particularly fiber systems,
continues to offer unique possibilities in a
measurement context. Where this will lead depends

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ISBN : 978 - 1505606395

particularly on the initiatives of the research

community. There remains considerable activity in
chemical sensing with distributed measurement as
one of many major interests. Tapered fibers have
emerged as means to monitor intracellular
chemistry with significantly submicron resolution.
The same resolution too could be applied to
measuring material properties in microengineered
structures, though these have yet to be
demonstrated. There are also prospects for the very
large and gravitational telescopes, based on an
enormous Sagnac interferometer, have been
proposed though their realization is probably
unlikely.
So most of the work in fiber-optic sensors is now
focused on developmental opportunities emerging
from the very productive era from the mid 1970s to
the mid 1980s. But the more speculative research
will continue, and at least some will lead into
demanding, exotic, innovative measurements.
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Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology

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