Open AccessHigh-precision thermal-insensitive strain sensor based on optoelectronic oscillator
Author(s) -
Zhiqiang Fan,
Jun Su,
Tianhang Zhang,
Ning Yang,
Qi Qiu
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.25.027037
Subject(s) - optics , materials science , sensitivity (control systems) , strain (injury) , temperature measurement , thermal , wavelength division multiplexing , fiber optic sensor , optical fiber , observational error , wavelength , optoelectronics , physics , electronic engineering , engineering , medicine , statistics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , meteorology
A high-precision and thermal-insensitive strain sensor based on two self-starting optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Two OEOs are grouped into a cross-referencing structure by dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM); the two OEOs have the same characters and they are placed in the same environment. In this frequency encoded strain sensor, it converts the strain information of the single mode fiber to the frequency information, and the frequency information is acquired by measuring the intermediate frequency (IF) mixed by the two OEOs. The accumulative magnification effect at high-order resonant frequency modes makes the strain sensor achieve high sensitivity, which significantly improves the precision of the measurement strain. The cross-referencing structure of the two OEOs makes the influence of the environment, such as temperature, greatly reduced. In the experiments, measurement errors less than ± 0.3 με at a measurement range of 600 με have been realized, including a drift error due to a variation in the environment such as temperature. Furthermore, a quasi-distributed strain measurement system based on the proposed strain sensor has been designed.