Instrumentation Reference Book, 4th Edition

Chapter 17. Fiber Optics in Sensor Instrumentation

B.T. Meggitt

17.1. Introduction

Fiber optic instrumentation has progressively evolved since early 1980 following the successful development of optical fiber networks for telecommunications applications. To a large degree, optical fiber sensor instrumentation has taken advantage of the maturing component market for telecommunications use, and its progress has been dictated by it. Initially a significant level of research effort was put into developing sensor systems based on the use of multimoded optical fibers, but as the bias in long-haul telecommunications moved toward the use of single-moded optical fibers for improved performance, so optical fiber sensor systems began to accept the use of single-mode ...