Spectral profile tracking of multiplexed fiber Bragg grating sensors

This paper outlines a demodulation technique for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors based on combined spectral profile division multiplexing and wavelength division multiplexing. The advantage to this technique is that more FBG sensors can be compressed in a fixed bandwidth, as compared to pure wavelength division multiplexing, in which separate wavelength window is required for each sensor. To identify each FBG sensor, the cross-correlation algorithm of the original sensor spectral profile with the measured full-spectrum from the sensor array is calculated for rapid signal processing. The demodulation method is tested on simulated and experimental data. The demodulation generally performed well, except for cases where a significant amount of spectral distortion due to multiplexing was present. Finally, a correction factor based on the prior location of each sensor at the previous time step is added to compensate for inherent uncertainties in the cross-correlation algorithm. The correction factor improved some predictions, but made others worse, and therefore needs further investigation for practical applications.