Temperature-compensated fiber specklegram strain sensing with an adaptive joint transform correlator

Agar-based optical sensors for electric current measurements

Biodegradable optical waveguides are breakthrough technologies to light delivery and sensing in biomedical and environmental applications. Agar emerges as an edible, soft, low-cost, and renewable alternative to traditional biopolymers, presenting remarkable optical and mechanical characteristics. Previous works introduced agar-made optical fibers for chemical measurements based on their inherent response to humidity and surrounding concentration. Therefore, we propose, for the first time, an all-optical, biodegradable electric current sensor. As flowing charges heat the agar matrix and modulate its refractive index, we connect the optical device to a DC voltage source using pin headers and excite the agar sample with coherent light to project spatiotemporally deviating speckle fields. Experiments proceeded with spheres and no-core fibers comprising 2 wt% agar/water. Once the increasing current stimulates the speckles' motion, we acquire such images with a camera and evaluate their correlation coefficients, yielding exponential decay-like functions whose time constants provide the input amperage. Furthermore, the light granules follow the polarization of the applied voltage drop, providing visual information about the current direction. The results indicate a maximum resolution of [Formula: see text]0.4 [Formula: see text]A for electrical stimuli [Formula: see text] 100 [Formula: see text]A, which fulfills the requirements for bioelectrical signal assessment.

Optical fiber specklegram sensor for multi-point curvature measurements

We present a multi-point curvature sensor based on optical fiber specklegram measurements. Apart from the current approaches, the proposed system uses an ordinary multimode fiber excited with visible light as a reflection-type probe. Besides, this method discretizes the waveguide into segments connected by joints and assumes sequential bend events, simplifying the specklegram referencing for correlation analyses and avoiding laborious deep learning processing. Sensor characterization yielded a linear response with ∼1.3^∘ resolution for single curvatures, whereas shape prediction experiments in the plane resulted in maximum errors of ∼3.5^∘ and ∼5.4mm for angular and linear positioning, respectively. Furthermore, exploratory tests indicated errors <2.3^∘ regarding probe curvatures in the space. This research introduces a feasible, straightforward alternative to the available shape sensors, enabling applications in medical probes and soft robotics.

Specklegram in a multiple-mode fiber and its dependence on longitudinal modes of the laser source

A specklegram in a multimode fiber (MMF) has successfully been used as a sensor for detecting external disturbance. Our experiments showed that the sensitivity in the sensor with a multiple longitudinal-mode laser as its source was much higher than that with a single longitudinal-mode laser. In addition, the near-field pattern observations indicated that the coupling between different transverse modes in the MMF is quite weak. Based on the experimental results, a theoretical model for the speckle formation is proposed, taking a bend-caused phase factor into consideration. It is shown in the theoretical analysis that the interferences between different longitudinal modes make a larger contribution to the specklegram signals.