Reflection Signal Analysis for Time Division Multiplexing of Fiber Optic FBG Sensors

Fiber optic sensor using fiber Bragg grating(FBG) probes is used for monitoring strain and temperature distributed on the wide surfaces of large structures. In this paper, in order to use many FBG probes in one optical fiber line, we propose a complex multiplexing technology which is composed of two techniques, one is time division multiplexing and another is wavelength division multiplexing. However, we only investigate the characteristics of time division multiplexing because FBG sensors basically can be operated by wavelength division multiplexing. We calculate the optimal reflectivities and the lengthwise location of five FBG probes in serial connection in order to obtain the unique reflected intensities from the FBG probes. We fabricate five FBG probes with the reflectivities of 13%, 16%, 25%, 40% and 80%, which are determined by the theoretical calculation, and observe the signal reflected from each FBG in the time domain from the experiment. There are differences between experimental and theoretical results caused by the signal noise and the differences of reflectivities of FBG probes. But the experimental results shows the reflected signals of five FBG probes which prove the availability of complex multiplexing.