Investigation of a plastic optical fiber imprinted with V-groove structure for displacement sensing

Abstract. A low cost and easily fabricated plastic optical fiber (POF) displacement sensor is presented. The sensor is based on the macrobending POF with a V-groove structure fabricated by a simple die-press-print method, which is easy to implement and effectively reduces the complexity of the fabrication process. The intensity modulation method is adopted for displacement sensing, which lowers the sensor system’s cost and complexity. Experiments are carried out to investigate the influence of the structural parameters on the displacement sensing performance and the proposed POF probe is optimized by changing the structure parameters. Results showed that when the V-groove structure depth is 200  μm, the length is 22 mm, the angle is 60 deg, the pitch is 2 mm, and the macrobending radius of the POF probe is 15 mm, the highest sensitivity could reach to 3.19  ×  10  −  2  /  mm with the measurement range of 18 mm.

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