Addressed Fiber Bragg Structures in Load-Sensing Wheel Hub Bearings

Abstract

The work presents an approach to instrument the load-sensing bearings for automotive applications for estimation of the loads acting on the wheels. The system comprises fiber-optic sensors based on addressed fiber Bragg structures (AFBS) with two symmetrical phase shifts. A mathematical model for load–deformation relation is presented, and the AFBS interrogation principle is described. The simulation includes (i) modeling of vehicle dynamics in a split-mu braking test, during which the longitudinal wheel loads are obtained, (ii) the subsequent estimation of bearing outer ring deformation using a beam model with simply supported boundary conditions, (iii) the conversion of strain into central frequency shift of AFBS, and (iv) modeling of the beating signal at the photodetector. The simulation results show that the estimation error of the longitudinal wheel force from the strain data acquired from a single measurement point was 5.44% with a root-mean-square error of 113.64 N. A prototype load-sensing bearing was instrumented with a single AFBS sensor and mounted in a front right wheel hub of an experimental vehicle. The experimental setup demonstrated comparable results with the simulation during the braking test. The proposed system with load-sensing bearings is aimed at estimation of the loads acting on the wheels, which serve as input parameters for active safety systems, such as automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, or fully automated driving, in order to enhance their effectiveness and the safety of the vehicle.

Influence of Two-Frequency Radiation Intensity Fluctuations on the Output Signal of a Vortex Optical Fiber Forming OAM Address in Polyharmonic Sensor Technology

“…When constructing fiber-optic and radio-photonic sensor networks (RPSNs) based on a plurality of fiber Bragg structures (FBS), there is a task of getting a unique address for every sensor element (grating). The complexity of this task is due to the high cost of interrogation devices, associated with the applied sensor multiplexing technologies, such as wavelength, time, frequency, polarization and spatial division multiplexing [15][16][17][18]. The complexity of the multiplexing technology applied and polling technologies is also explained by another important factor-the polled sensors, as a rule, are not adapted for address polling, therefore any overlap of the FBS spectra leads to significant measurement errors.…”

Noise Cancellation of Helicopter Blade Deformations Measurement by Fiber Bragg Gratings

“…The common disadvantage of the mentioned interrogation techniques is the complexity and high cost of devices required for their implementation. In order to simplify the FBG interrogation, the usage of addressed fiber Bragg structures (AFBSs) has been proposed [21,22]. An AFBS is a type of FBG, the spectral response of which has two ultra-narrowband components.…”

Addressed Fiber Bragg Sensors for Vibration Diagnostics of Complex Objects

“…In our work, we propose to use addressed fiber Bragg structures (AFBG) as sensing elements. The AFBG theory was first proposed and developed within the framework of the scientific school of the authors, a series of technical solutions for temperature and static deformation control [20][21][22] are proposed. The use of address structures makes it possible to get rid of traditional interrogators, which makes it possible to significantly expand the range of detected frequencies while retaining one of the main advantages of FBG sensors -the simplicity of multiplexing.…”