Fiber optic sensor networks based on OADM devices with a bus configuration

This paper develops a fiber optical sensor network based on OADM (optical add-drop multiplexer) devices with a bus configuration. Unlike conventional bus sensor networks which need optical couplers to include the sensors, the proposed network uses OADM to incorporate the sensors to the network. These devices make it possible to increase the number of sensors in bus networks in comparison with those that have optical couplers, wherein the transmitted signal into the spine of the bus decreases because of the insertion loss and also because of the coupling ratio. In this work, different intensity sensors have been efficiently employed because the proposed configuration addresses the two main concerns of intensity sensors: on the one hand, each sensor is associated with a different wavelength directly offered by each OADM; and on the other hand, a reference wavelength is included in order to distinguish between power variations induced by the transducer or to detect a fiber failure.