Spiral-structured fiber Bragg grating for contact force sensing through direct power measurement

A high-sensitivity fiber Bragg grating (FBG) force sensor based on direct optical power measurement is presented. The approach utilizes a novel structure where the FBG is mounted on a thin tube-like fixture spirally. Contact force measurement is achieved through direct measurement of the FBG reflection power at a single wavelength using a power meter. The measuring system in our approach is simple and does not require processing of massive amount of spectral data, enabling real-time contact force monitoring. When force is applied to the FBG sensor, the unique spiral structure leads to FBG chirping and reflection spectrum broadening. A proportional relationship and linear fit are found between the force applied (up to 1.55 N) and the optical power reflected by the proposed FBG sensor. An average sensitivity of 11.16 dB/N is experimentally achieved. This design significantly reduces system complexity and improves data processing speed, which has great practical value in real-time FBG sensing applications. (C)2014 Optical Society of America