• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.23-39
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• 2013

In this article, a smart multifunctional optical system-on-a-chip (SOC) sensor platform is presented and its application for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor interrogation in optical sensor networks is investigated. The smart SOC sensor platform consists of a superluminescent diode as a broadband source, a tunable microelectromechanical system (MEMS) based Fabry-P$\acute{e}$rot filter, photodetectors, and an integrated microcontroller for data acquisition, processing, and communication. Integrated with a wireless sensor network (WSN) module in a compact package, a smart optical sensor node is developed. The smart multifunctional sensor platform has the capability of interrogating different types of optical fiber sensors, including Fabry-P$\acute{e}$rot sensors and Bragg grating sensors. As a case study, the smart optical sensor platform is demonstrated to interrogate multiplexed FBG strain sensors. A time domain signal processing method is used to obtain the Bragg wavelength shift of two FBG strain sensors through sweeping the MEMS tunable Fabry-P$\acute{e}$rot filter. A tuning range of 46 nm and a tuning speed of 10 Hz are achieved. The smart optical sensor platform will open doors to many applications that require high performance optical WSNs.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.312-316
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• 2013

A novel fiber-optic sensor system is suggested in which fiber Bragg grating sensors are demodulated by a wavelength-sweeping fiber laser source and a spectrometer. The spectrometer consists of a diffraction grating and a 512-pixel photo-diode array. The reflected Bragg wavelength information is transformed into spatial intensity distribution on the photo-diode array. The peak locations linearly correspond to the Bragg wavelengths, regardless of the nonlinearities in the wavelength tuning mechanism of the fiber laser. The high power density of the fiber laser enables obtaining high signal-to-noise ratio outputs. The improved demodulation characteristics were experimentally demonstrated with a fiber Bragg grating sensor array with 5 gratings. The sensor outputs were in much more linear fashion compared with the conventional tunable band-pass filter demodulation. Also it showed advantages in signal processing, due to the high level of photo-diode array signals, over the broadband light source system, especially in measurement of fast varying dynamic physical quantities.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.255-259
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• 2015

We have proposed and experimentally verified a pulse-width modulation (PWM) generator which directly generated a PWM signal in the optical domain. Output waveforms were clear at the repetition rate of 16 MHz; the duty cycle (DC) was from 14.7% to 72.1%; and the DC-control resolution was about 4.399%/dB. The PWM generator' operation principle is based on the injection-locking property of a single-mode Fabry-$P{\acute{e}}rot$ laser diode (SMFP-LD). The SMFP-LD, which has a self-locked mode wavelength at ${\lambda}_{PWM}$, was used to detect the power of the injection-locking signal (optical analog input). If the analog input power is high, the SMFP-LD is locked to the wavelength of the input signal ${\lambda}_a$ and there is no output after an optical bandpass filter (OBF). If the analog input power is low, the SMFP-LD is unlocked and there is output signal at ${\lambda}_{PWM}$ after the OBF. Thus, the SMFP-LD plus the OBF provide digital output for an analog input. The DC of the output PWM signal can be controlled by tuning the power of the analog input.