Demonstration of a polarization maintaining fiber tape for simultaneous transverse-force and temperature sensing based on distributed polarization crosstalk analysis

摘要

We demonstrate a polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) sensing tape capable of measuring transverse-force (TF) and temperature simultaneously, based on the distributed polarization crosstalk analysis (DPXA) technique. Using a self-developed automatic birefringence axis alignment equipment, a PMF is fixed on a transparent PET strip with the highest sensitivity to TF and high polarization crosstalk consistency along the axial direction. 6 preset crosstalk points with an adjacent spatial distance of 2 m along the PMF are produced through fusion splicing, and the temperature spatial resolution of 2 m is determined. The distributed TF and temperature sensing can be achieved by independently monitoring the intensities of TF-induced polarization crosstalk peaks and the distance-resolved delay spacing of adjacent preset crosstalk peaks, respectively. The maximum temperature measurement error is measured to be 6.84 °C, which can be seen as the temperature resolution of sensing. The experimental results indicate that our sensing tape can be practical after several improvements.