Single mode optical fiber vibration sensor: design and development

This work deals with the design and development of an SMF28-based vibration detector including the fiber segment, the data acquisition via an NI-USB-6212 card, the data processing code in Visual Basic and the signal spectrum obtained via Fourier analysis. The set-up consists of a regulated voltage source at 2.6V, 300mA, which serves as the power source for a 980nm semiconductor laser operating at 150mW which is fiber coupled into a 20m-piece of SMF-28 fiber. Perpendicular to such fiber the perturbations ranged from 1 to 100 kHz, coming from a DC motor at 12 Volts. At the detection stage, a simple analog filter and a commercial photo diode were employed for data acquisition, before a trans-impedance amplification stage reconstructed the signal into the National Instruments data acquisition card. At the output, the signals Fourier transformation allows the signal to be displayed in a personal computer. The presentation will include a full electrical and optical characterization of the device and preliminary sensing results, which could be suitable for structural health monitoring applications.