Intensity based interrogation of optical fibre sensors for industrial automation and intrusion detection systems

In this study, the use of optical fibre sensors for intrusion detection and industrial automation systems has been demonstrated, with a particular focus on low cost, intensity-based, interrogation techniques. The use of optical fibre sensors for intrusion detection systems to secure residential, commercial, and industrial premises against potential security breaches has been extensively reviewed in this thesis. Fibre Bragg grating (FBG) sensing is one form of optical fibre sensing that has been underutilised in applications such as in-ground, in-fence, and window and door monitoring, and addressing that opportunity has been a major goal of this thesis. Both security and industrial sensor systems must include some centralised intelligence (electronic controller) and ideally both automation and security sensor systems would be controlled and monitored by the same centralised system. Optical fibre sensor systems that could be used for either application have been designed, developed, and tested in this study, and optoelectronic interfaces for integrating these sensors with electronic controllers have been demonstrated. The versatility of FBG sensors means that they are also ideal for certain mainstream industrial applications. Two novel transducers have been developed in this work; a highly sensitive low pressure FBG diaphragm transducer and a FBG load cell transducer. Both have been designed to allow interrogation of the optical signal could occur within the housing of the individual sensors themselves. This is achieved in a simple and low cost manner that enables the output of the transducers to be easily connected to standard electronic controllers, such as programmable logic controllers. Furthermore, some of the nonlinear characteristics of FBG sensors have been explored with the aim of developing transducers that are inherently decoupled from strain and temperature interference. One of the major advantages of optical fibre sensors is their ability to be both time division and wavelength division multiplexed. The intensity-based interrogation techniques used here complement this attribute and are a major consideration when developing the transducers and optoelectronic circuits. A time division multiplexing technique, using transmit-reflect detection and incorporating a dual bus, has also been developed. This system architecture enables all the different optical fibre transducers on the network to have the same Bragg wavelength and hence the number of spare replacement transducers required is minimal. Moreover, sensors can be replaced in an online control system without disrupting the network. In addition, by analysing both the transmitted and reflected signals, problems associated with optical power fluctuations are eliminated and the intensity of the sensor signals is increased through differential amplification. Overall, the research addresses the limitations of conventional electrical sensors, such as susceptibility to corrosive damage in wet and corrosive environments, and risk of causing an explosion in hazardous environments, as well as the limitations of current stand-alone optical fibre sensor systems. This thesis supports more alert, reliable, affordable, and coordinated, control and monitoring systems in an on-line environment

Optical fiber sensors in physical intrusion detection systems: A review

Fiber optic sensors have become a mainstream sensing technology within a large array of applications due to their inherent benefits. They are now used significantly in structural health monitoring, and are an essential solution for monitoring harsh environments. Since their first development over 30 years ago, they have also found promise in security applications. This paper reviews all of the optical fiber-based techniques used in physical intrusion detection systems. It details the different approaches used for sensing, interrogation, and networking, by research groups, attempting to secure both commercial and residential premises from physical security breaches. The advantages and the disadvantages of the systems are discussed, and each of the different perimeter protection methods is outlined, namely, in-ground, perimeter fence, and window and door protection. This paper reviews the progress in optical fiber-based intrusion detection techniques from the past through to the current state-of-the-art systems and identifies areas, which may provide opportunities for improvement, as well as proposing future directions in this field

Perimeter system based on a combination of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and the Bragg gratings

Fiber optic interferometers and Bragg gratings belong to the group of very precise and sensitive devicesthat allow measuring very small deformation, temperature or vibration changes. The described methodology presentsthe useof a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and Bragg gratings together as a sensor system for detecting and monitoring movement within thedefined perimeter of 2.5×1m. Analyses of the dynamic changes in interferometric patterns were a basis for this method. Also the signal maximum amplitude was measured and compared with the noise background. Perimeter disruptions can be detected by Bragg gratings due to its large deformation sensitivity in transversal or perpendicular directions. The result is then evaluated in the spectral domain. In terms of detected persons it showed very good results. The combination of these sensors was chosen for monitoring both the static and dynamic phenomena. Author's aim is to take advantage of both devices' positive properties. Thus, the system has the abilityto identify people due to frequency analysis in case of interferometers as well as dynamic weighting thanks to Bragg gratings

In-Ground Optical Fibre Bragg Grating Pressure Switch for Security Applications

In this study, a fibre Bragg grating (FBG) was embedded beneath three common flooring materials acting as a pressure switch for in-ground intrusion detection. This is achieved using an intensiometric detection system, where a laser diode and FBG were optically mismatched so that there was a static dc offset from the transmitted and reflected optical power signals. As pressure was applied, in the form of a footstep, a strain induced wavelength shift occurred that could then be detected by converting the wavelength shift into an intensity change. The change in intensity caused a significant change in the DC offset which behaved as on optical switch. This switch could easily be configured to trigger an alarm if required. The intention is to use the FBG sensor as an in-ground intrusion detection pressure switch to detect an intruder walking within range of the sensor. This type of intrusion detection system can be applied to both external (in soil, etc) and internal (within the foundations or flooring of the home) security systems. The results show that a person\u27s footstep can clearly be detected through solid wood flooring, laminate flooring, and ceramic floor tiles

Optical Fiber Networks for Remote Fiber Optic Sensors

This paper presents an overview of optical fiber sensor networks for remote sensing. Firstly, the state of the art of remote fiber sensor systems has been considered. We have summarized the great evolution of these systems in recent years; this progress confirms that fiber-optic remote sensing is a promising technology with a wide field of practical applications. Afterwards, the most representative remote fiber-optic sensor systems are briefly explained, discussing their schemes, challenges, pros and cons. Finally, a synopsis of the main factors to take into consideration in the design of a remote sensor system is gathered

Distributed Fiber Ultrasonic Sensor and Pattern Recognition Analytics

Ultrasound interrogation and structural health monitoring technologies have found a wide array of applications in the health care, aerospace, automobile, and energy sectors. To achieve high spatial resolution, large array electrical transducers have been used in these applications to harness sufficient data for both monitoring and diagnoses. Electronic-based sensors have been the standard technology for ultrasonic detection, which are often expensive and cumbersome for use in large scale deployments. Fiber optical sensors have advantageous characteristics of smaller cross-sectional area, humidity-resistance, immunity to electromagnetic interference, as well as compatibility with telemetry and telecommunications applications, which make them attractive alternatives for use as ultrasonic sensors. A unique trait of fiber sensors is its ability to perform distributed acoustic measurements to achieve high spatial resolution detection using a single fiber. Using ultrafast laser direct-writing techniques, nano-reflectors can be induced inside fiber cores to drastically improve the signal-to-noise ratio of distributed fiber sensors. This dissertation explores the applications of laser-fabricated nano-reflectors in optical fiber cores for both multi-point intrinsic Fabry–Perot (FP) interferometer sensors and a distributed phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (φ-OTDR) to be used in ultrasound detection. Multi-point intrinsic FP interferometer was based on swept-frequency interferometry with optoelectronic phase-locked loop that interrogated cascaded FP cavities to obtain ultrasound patterns. The ultrasound was demodulated through reassigned short time Fourier transform incorporating with maximum-energy ridges tracking. With tens of centimeters cavity length, this approach achieved 20kHz ultrasound detection that was finesse-insensitive, noise-free, high-sensitivity and multiplex-scalability. The use of φ-OTDR with enhanced Rayleigh backscattering compensated the deficiencies of low inherent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The dynamic strain between two adjacent nano-reflectors was extracted by using 3×3 coupler demodulation within Michelson interferometer. With an improvement of over 35 dB SNR, this was adequate for the recognition of the subtle differences in signals, such as footstep of human locomotion and abnormal acoustic echoes from pipeline corrosion. With the help of artificial intelligence in pattern recognition, high accuracy of events’ identification can be achieved in perimeter security and structural health monitoring, with further potential that can be harnessed using unsurprised learning

Nanostructured optical fibre tapers and related applications

In the last decade, optical fibre tapers have attracted considerable interest because they offer a variety of enabling properties, including large evanescent fields, flexibility, configurability, high confinement, robustness and compactness. These distinctive features have been exploited in a wealth of applications ranging from telecommunication devices to sensors, from optical manipulation to high-Q resonators. Nanostructures on the optical fibre tapers are very promising since the size of the device can be extremely small. With the development of nanostructuring methods, sub-wavelength feature sizes have been achieved. In this thesis, nanostructured optical fibre tapers and some related applications are discussed.Light confinement is limited by diffraction and the minimum spot size is related to the light wavelength. In this thesis, light confinement in two and three dimensions is proposed and achieved with two typologies of nanostructured optical fibre tapers. The first group of devices exploits plasmons excited at the optical fibre tips to obtain high transmissivity, and confine light to a sub-wavelength dimension. Optical fibre tips were designed according to numerical simulations and coated by a layer of gold; an extremely small aperture was then opened at the tip apex. The experimental characterization and simulation results showed their improved transmission efficiency (higher than 10-2) and thermal expansion measurements showed no shape changes could be detected within the accuracy of the system (~2 nm) for 9 mW injected powers. Effective confinements to 10 nm or smaller can be envisaged by decreasing the aperture size and slope angle. Application of this small spot size source can include scanning near-field optical microscope, optical recording, photolithography and bio-sensing.The second group achieves three dimensional light confinement exploiting a Fabry-Perot microcavity formed by a microfibre grating similar to those used in distributed feedback lasers. Microfibres were patterned using a Focused Ion Beam (FIB) system. In this structure, the microcavity provides longitudinal light confinement, whereas air dielectric guiding by the microfibre provides diffraction limited confinement in the other two dimensions. Due to the high refractive index contrast between silica and air, strong reflection can be obtained by only dozens of notches. This device can be used for a wide range of applications, e.g. sensing and triggered single-photon sources.Light confinement in nanostructured optical fibre tapers was exploited in a micrometric thermometer. A compact thermometer based on a broadband microfibre coupler tip showed a dynamic range spanning from room temperature to 1511ºC with a response time of tens of microseconds. This is the highest temperature measured with a silica optical fibre device. An average sensitivity of 11.96 pm/ºC was achieved for a coupler tip with ~2.5 µm diameter. A resolution of 0.66ºC was achieved for a coupler tip diameter of ~12.6 µm. Better resolution can be achieved with smaller size microfibre coupler tips.Optical fibre tapers are commonly used to couple light to selected resonator modes. Here FIB was used to inscribe microgrooves on optical Bottleneck Microresonator (BMR) surfaces to excite selected whispering gallery modes. By monitoring the transmission spectrum of the optical fibre taper, substantial spectral clean-up was obtained in appropriately scarred BMRs. Single high-Q mode operation can be achieved by either using two asymmetrical perpendicular scars or placing the grooves closer to the BMR centre, providing the potential for high performance sensors and other optical devices.Finally, strong three dimensional localization has been achieved in Plasmonic Slot Nano-Resonators (PSNRs) embedded in a gold-coated optical fibre tapers. Different shapes PSNRs, embedded in thin gold metal film coated plasmonic microfibre, were numerically investigated. The intensity enhancement (in excess of 106) and the resonance wavelength depend on both the PSNR and microfibre dimensions. Theoretically and experimentally, the transversal excitation of a rectangular PSNR embedded in a thin gold film coated plasmonic fibre tip was discussed for the first time, and showed high localization and strong enhancement (7.24×103). This device can find a wide range of applications such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering, optical filtering, spectroscopy and bio-sensing

Analysis of the applicability of singlemode optical fibers for measurement of deformation with distributed systems BOTDR

Distributed optical fiber sensors allow monitoring physical effects across the whole cable. The paper presents results obtained from the performed tests and shows that single mode fibers can provide analyses of the deformation changes, when distributed optical systems BOTDR used. We used standard optical fiber G.652.D with primary and secondary protected layers and specialized cable SMC-V4 designed for this purpose. The aim was to compare the deformation sensitivity and determine which fiber types are the best to use. We deformed the fiber in the longitudinal and transverse directions and mechanically stressed in orthogonal directions to find how to localize optical fibers. They could be deployed in real use. For achieving optimal results of mechanical changes and acting forces, sensor fibers have to be located carefully