Enhancing the Performance of FBG Accelerometers by Using In-Fiber Fabry Perot Interferometers

Abstract

An in-fiber Fabry–Perot interferometer (FPI) is proposed and designed for performance improvement of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) accelerometer. It consists of two FBGs which are inscribed using the femtosecond laser point-by-point technology. The spectral characteristics of the FBG Fabry–Perot (FBG-FP) were studied. Edge filter interrogation configuration was employed in the vibration measurement system. In contrast to the conventional FBG accelerometer used in wavelength interrogation or edge filter interrogation configurations, the scheme has a higher sensitivity and lower detection threshold which are achieved improving the optical properties of the accelerometer. We fabricated a high-frequency accelerometer and experiments were carried out to verify its performance. The sensitivity and detection threshold were 27.3 mV/g and 1.5 mg, respectively. This study presents a feasibility analysis of the short cavity FBG-FP, as opposed to a single FBG, for the vibration accelerometer.