1. Optical fiber based soft curvature sensor with polyvinyl chloride reinforced silicone rubber substrate
- Author
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Lianqing Zhu, Xiongxiong Zhang, Guangkai Sun, Fanyong Meng, and Yanming Song
- Subjects
Optical fiber ,Materials science ,02 engineering and technology ,Substrate (printing) ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,Silicone rubber ,Curvature ,01 natural sciences ,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics ,Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials ,law.invention ,010309 optics ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Polyvinyl chloride ,chemistry ,Fiber Bragg grating ,law ,0103 physical sciences ,Calibration ,Fiber ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,Composite material ,0210 nano-technology - Abstract
To meet the demands for curvature measurement in the field of biomedical intelligent equipment, soft robots and complex structures of major infrastructures, an optical fiber based soft curvature sensor is proposed. The major contribution is obtaining a soft curvature sensor with extraordinary high sensitivity and repeatability. A silicone rubber sheet is glued on the surface of polyvinyl chloride to form polyvinyl chloride (PVC) reinforced silicone rubber substrate, the fiber Bragg grating is embedded into the substrate to form the sensor. The sensor is calibrated using standard curvature calibration blocks. The characteristic of the reflected spectrum of the sensor is analyzed. The relation between the sensitivity and the fiber embedded depth is obtained. The research results prove that the real-time measurement of structure curvature can be realized by the sensor. The polyvinyl chloride reinforced silicone rubber substrate is helpful to improve the sensitivity and repeatability of the sensor. The maximum sensitivity is up to 329.2pm/m−1. The sensor has good consistency in repeated measurements, it has application presents in measuring the curvature of flexible mechanisms and complex structures.
- Published
- 2019