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A wireless refractive index sensor for in-line measurement in liquids was developed. It is based on the Fresnel reflection on a prism–liquid interface, where the critical angle of the totally reflected light in the interface of two media is detected by a charge-coupled device (CCD) array. A LED is used as a light source and a plastic optical fibre, with a well-established numeric aperture, guides the light to the prism interface. Both the LED and the CCD are controlled with a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board with wireless communication. Resolutions with values lower than 1.0 × 10−4 RIU can be achieved with this potential low-cost configuration.

Fibre optic Bragg gratings (FBGs) written in normal and reduced diameter high birefringence (HiBi) fibres are studied. Chemical etching is used to reduce the diameter of fibres while the optical properties of the FBG spectrum are measured. The results obtained agree qualitatively with the stress enhanced chemical etching. The birefringence of the fibre is determined as a function of the diameter. Optical characterization of the FBG under transverse strain and temperature is also performed. The results obtained show the feasibility of the simultaneous measurement of those parameters with a HiBi FBG sensor.

The use of fibre Bragg grating sensors to study dental materials like resin-based composite and gypsum products is reported. Two commercially available composite resins and three types of gypsum products were tested in order to determine polymerization contraction and setting expansion. Temperature and strain evolution during the hardening phase of the material were also obtained. The presented technique can be a good tool for dentists in order to better manipulate a material and predict how it will behave in vivo.

We used a pair of Bragg gratings written in high birefringence fibre optics to measure, simultaneously, longitudinal and transverse strain and temperature. The Bragg gratings are superimposed in the same position of the fibre optic, so as to behave as a punctual sensor. The sensitivity of the spectral response of the device to longitudinal strain, transverse strain and temperature are all characterized, and the results of its application as a three-parameter sensor are also presented.

In this paper an intensity liquid level sensor based on a single-mode—no-core—single-mode (SMS) fiber structure together with a Bragg grating inscribed in the later single mode fiber is proposed. As the no-core fiber is sensitive to the external refractive index, the SMS spectral response will be shifted related to the length of no-core fiber that is immersed in a liquid. By positioning the FBG central wavelength at the spectral region of the SMS edge filter, it is possible to measure the liquid level using the reflected FBG peak power through an intensity-based approach. The sensor is also self-referenced using the peak power of another FBG that is placed before and far from the sensing part. The temperature error analysis was also studied revealing that the sensor can operate in environments where the temperature changes are minimal. The possibility to use a second setup that makes the whole device temperature insensitive is also discussed.

We report the development of an optical fiber sensor capable of simultaneously measuring strain, temperature and refractive index. The sensor is based on the combination of two fiber Bragg gratings written in a standard single-mode fiber, one in an untapered region and another in a tapered region, spliced to a no-core fiber. The possibility of simultaneously measuring three parameters relies on the different sensitivity responses of each part of the sensor. The results have shown the possibility of measuring three parameters simultaneously with a resolution of 3.77 μe, 1.36 °C and 5 × 10−4, respectively for strain, temperature and refractive index. On top of the multiparameter ability, the simple production and combination of all the parts involved on this optical-fiber-based sensor is an attractive feature for several sensing applications.

We have shown experimental results of the excitation of long period fiber gratings by means of flexural acoustic waves with a wavelength larger than the grating period, validated by numerical simulations. The effect of the acoustic wave on the grating is modeled with the method of assumed modes, which delivers the strain field inside the grating, then used as the input to the transfer matrix method, needed for calculating the grating spectrum. The experimental and numerical results are found to be in good agreement, even though only the strain-optic effects are taken into account.

A wearable and wireless system designed to evaluate quantitatively the human gait is presented. It allows knee sagittal motion monitoring over long distances and periods with a portable and low-cost package. It is based on the measurement of transmittance changes when a side-polished plastic optical fibre is bent. Four voluntary healthy subjects, on five different days, were tested in order to assess inter-day and inter-subject reliability. Results have shown that this technique is reliable, allows a one-time calibration and is suitable in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of knee injuries or for monitoring the performance of competitive athletes. Environmental testing was accomplished in order to study the influence of different temperatures and humidity conditions.

A novel cure monitoring system based on a side-polished interface on a plastic optical fibre is presented. Due to the mismatch of the refractive index of the fibre core and the external medium, part of the light beam is transmitted along the optical fibre by internal reflection and part is refracted in the sensitive zone. The phenomenon behind the principle of operation of the sensor is the reflection and transmission of light at an interface of two dielectric media traduced by Fresnel's equations. A good agreement between numerical and experimental results was achieved and real-time monitoring of the cure process was accomplished for a polyurethane resin and two different varnishes.