An Optical Fiber Twist Sensor With Temperature Compensation Mechanism Based on T-SMS Structure

A new optical fiber twist sensor with temperature compensation mechanism is designed and experimentally demonstrated. The main structure of this twist sensor is a torsion perturbation point cascaded with single mode-multimode-single mode (SMS) fiber structure. The experimental results show that the twist sensor has ability to distinguish the twist direction with sensitivities of 9.5 pm/degrees and 34.7 pm/degrees at the chosen dips in the range from -100 degrees (CCW) to 140 degrees (CW). Furthermore, the temperature response characteristic of the sensor is also researched through experiment. Temperature sensitivities of 71.8 pm/degrees C and 65.2 pm/degrees C can be obtained at the same dips in the range from 20 degrees C to 75 degrees C. In addition, the temperature's influence can be compensated with post-measurement calculation through the cross-matrix. The theoretical resolutions of twist and temperature simultaneous measurement are +/- 0.084 degrees and +/- 0.32 degrees C, respectively.