Polymer Optical Fiber Bragg Gratings in CYTOP Fibers for Angle Measurement with Dynamic Compensation

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the use of polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings (POFBGs) for angle measurements over a range of different oscillatory frequencies. The POFBGs are inscribed in low-loss, cyclic transparent amorphous fluoropolymers (CYTOP) and are imprinted using the direct-write, plane-by-plane femtosecond laser inscription method. As the polymer has a viscoelastic response and given that the Young’s modulus depends on the oscillatory frequency, a compensation technique for sensor frequency cross-sensitivity and hysteresis is proposed and verified. Results show that the proposed compensation technique is able to provide a root mean squared error (RMSE) reduction of 44%, and a RMSE as low as 2.20° was obtained when compared with a reference potentiometer. The hysteresis reduction provided by the proposed technique is 55%, with hysteresis <0.01. The results presented in this paper can pave the way for movement analysis with POFBG providing higher sensitivity and low hysteresis over a large range of motion frequencies.

Keywords

• polymer optical fiber
• fiber Bragg gratings
• CYTOP
• curvature sensor
• hysteresis