This paper presents a method for measuring two components of bending force and temperature using one sensor head. Indirect inference based on the spectra of two fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) placed on a cantilever beam is used. The method was developed during work on the inverse problem of determining a nonuniform stress distribution based on FBG spectra. A gradient in the FBG stress profile results in a characteristic shape of its reflective spectrum. The simultaneous measurements of force and temperature were possible through the use of an appropriate layout of the sensor head. The spectral characteristics of the sensor's gratings do not retain full symmetry, which is due to the geometry of the sensor's head and the related difference in the distribution of the axial stress of the gratings. In the proposed approach, the change in width of the sum of the normalized transmission spectra was used to determine the value of the applied force. In the presented method, an increase in the sensitivity of this change to the force is obtained relative to the other known systems. A change in the spectral width was observed for an increase in bending forces from 0 to 150 N. The sensitivity coefficient of the spectral width to force, defined as the ratio of the change of the spectral half-width to the change in force was 2.6e-3  nm/N for the first grating and 1.2e-3  nm/N for the second grating. However, the sensitivity of the whole sensor system was 5.8e-3  nm/N, which is greater than the sum of the sensitivities of the individual gratings. For the purpose of this work, a station with a thermal chamber has been designed with a bracket on which fiber optic transducers have been mounted for use in further measurements. The sensor head in this experiment is considered to be a universal device with potential applications in other types of optical sensors, and it can be treated as a module for development through its multiplication on a single optical fiber.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a method for the detection of steel material defects utilizing a fiber Bragg grating sensor. The considered defects are periodic grooves along the length of the tested steel profile. Direct measurement of the spectral reflectance characteristics of the fiber is performed, and the related inverse problem of indirect defect shape determination is solved. It has been demonstrated that the defect periodicity estimation is 2.5 mm, with an error of less than 0.1. Furthermore, it has been shown that for periodic intervals of the order of 5 mm, the difference between the strain amplitude calculated using our method and the amplitude obtained via the finite element method was 1.4 mϵ.

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Tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) is a very popular fiber optic element that is used as a sensor for various physical quantities. The calculation of the refractive index of a substance surrounding the TFBG is based on its spectrum demodulation, which consists of determining a certain parameter that is correlated with the sought quantity. The most commonly used parameter is the area created by the maxima and minima of the cladding mode resonances. In this article, we propose a new group of methods, which are based on calculating the parameters related to the spectrum differences between the local average values in the range of occurrence of the cladding modes. The basic parameter used in this group of methods is the mean absolute deviation from the local mean, which is characterized by the best linearity among the considered group of methods. The calculated parameters, in their cumulative form, can also be used to determine the cut-off wavelength, which can also indirectly indicate the refractive index value. The proposed approaches were compared, in terms of measurement resolution, to the most commonly used methods, such as the cladding modes’ envelope area and the spectral contour lengths.

Open-Path Fourier Transform Infrared OP-FTIR spectrometers are commonly used for the measurement of atmospheric pollutants and of gases in industrial processes. Spectral interpretation for the determination of gas concentrations is based on the HITRAN database line-by-line modeling method. This article describes algorithms used to model gas spectra and to determine gas concentration under variable temperatures. Integration of individual rotational lines has been used to reduce the impact of spectrometer functions on the comparison of both measured and synthetic modeled spectra. Carbon monoxide was used as an example. A new algorithm for gas concentration retrieval consisting of two ensemble methods is proposed. The first method uses an ensemble of local models based on linear and non-linear PLS (partial least square) regression algorithms, while the second is an ensemble of a calibration set built for different temperatures. It is possible to combine these methods to decrease the number of regression models in the first ensemble. These individual models are appropriate for specific measurement conditions specified by the ensemble of the calibration set. Model selection is based on comparison of gas spectra with values determined from each local model.

In this Letter, it has been shown that the twisting of TFBGs (tilted fiber Bragg gratings) decreases their sensitivity to the polarization of the input light. It has been proved by a theoretical simulation study that twisting the TFBG by 180° eliminates the sensitivity of the grating to input light polarization changes. We have experimentally proved that our structure produced has an 18 times lower coefficient of variation of transmission for polarization changes than the untwisted TFBG. This Letter also presents a new method for manufacturing the twisted tilted fiber Bragg grating (TTFBG). We have demonstrated the possibility of writing the TTFBG structure twisted by 90° on a fiber with a length of 10 mm. The structure has been further twisted in the other direction by 90°, which is consistent with a structure twisted by 180°. The properties of both structures were determined. Due to the fiber's strength, the TTFBG twisted by 180° has to be 2 cm long. An advantage of the proposed method of producing the TTFBG is that there is a twist of the structure itself after fabrication. This creates new possibilities of using the structure in many applications. This type of grating can be used to reduce the sensitivity to polarization in various sensing applications, in particular, to measure the refractive index. In addition, a 180° twisted TTFBG has properties of direction discrimination in twist sensing applications.

This paper addresses problems arising from in situ measurement of gas content and temperature. Such measurements can be considered indirect. Transmittance or natural radiation of a gas is measured directly. The latter method (spectral radiation measurement) is often called spectral remote sensing. Its primary uses are in astronomy and in the measurement of atmospheric composition. In industrial processes, in situ spectroscopic measurements in the plant are often made with an open path Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer. The main difficulty in this approach is related to the calibration process, which often cannot be carried out in the manner used in the laboratory. Spectral information can be obtained from open path spectroscopic measurements using mathematical modeling, and by solving the inverse problem. Determination of gas content based on spectral measurements requires comparison of the measured and modeled spectra. This paper proposes a method for the simultaneous use of multiple lines to determine the gas content. The integrated absorptions of many spectral lines permits calculation of the average band absorption. An inverse model based on neural networks is used to determine gas content based on mid-infrared spectra at variable temperatures.

This article presents the use of a sensor with fiber Bragg grating along with an interrogation system used for monitoring the overhead lines’ wire elongation. The possible interrogation methods based on adjusted filters were considered. In the experimental part, three types of fiber Bragg grating pairs, characterized by a small shift in spectra in pairs and gratings with exact matching, were examined. The study showed that, by choosing the appropriate mechanical parameters of the elongation transformer with the optical parameters of the sensor and dedicated filter, the optomechanical system can be adjusted to the required range of overhead line wire sag observation. The range of sag depends on the distance between the poles, the wire type, and its real length in the span, which effectively determines the sag.