Fiber optic sensors

You don't have to be a fan of "Star Trek" to know that the speed of light can cover incredibly long distances in the blink of an eye. In a vacuum, light waves travel a distance of around 300,000 kilometers per second. In reality, it may not be quite that fast, but optical fibres with outstanding properties such as high bandwidths and high transmission speeds have revolutionized data transmission and therefore data processing. Fiber optic cables transmit optical signals in the form of light, enabling fast and almost loss-free signal transmission even via long distances. These are just a few of the decisive advantages that can also be transferred to fiber optic sensors without any compromises.

In combination with the appropriate photoconductive ends or fiber optic heads and fiber optic amplifiers, fiber optics are contactless and therefore wear-free position switches that detect a wide variety of objects regardless of their nature (such as shape, color, geometry, material, surface texture, etc.). As the fiber optic heads are characterized by particularly small dimensions in the millimeter range and the fiber optics themselves are flexible to a certain degree, fiber optic sensors can be used to solve object queries very elegantly, especially in hard-to-reach locations with very tight installation conditions, where other sensors often fail for many other reasons. Due to the fiber optics for signal transmission, the evaluation electronics or the actual sensor technology can be relocated to areas outside an interrogation point where an easily accessible mounting location with sufficient installation space is available. In addition, the evaluation electronics are positioned away from the interrogation point, where adverse environmental conditions may prevail, so that fiber optics can also be used for very demanding locations, e.g. with high temperatures.

This white paper describes the design and properties of fiber optic sensors and presents some specific solutions from ipf electronic in this context. Finally, an application example is used to describe how a company uses fiber optic sensors from ipf electronic to increase process reliability in the production of data cables.