Design, characterization and implementation of a fiber Bragg grating temperature sensor for application in solar power electronic inverters

Abstract

This paper reports the design, characterization and implementation of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) temperature sensor in a power electronic inverter which has a high electromagnetic interference (EMI) radiation. The performance and characteristics of the sensor are investigated by monitoring the temperature variation of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) in photovoltaic (PV) arrays inverter. The thermal expansion of the optical fiber is enhanced by mounting the FBG sensor to a metal sheet. Due to this enhancement, the FBG temperature sensor recorded an improvement in terms of linearity and sensitivity. A comparison is made between the performance of the enhanced FBG sensor and a thermocouple in a high EMI environment, and the results show that the FBG sensor performs better.