Plastic optical fibre sensor for spine bending monitoring with power fluctuation compensation

Sensors (Basel). 2013 Oct 25;13(11):14466-83. doi: 10.3390/s131114466.

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation of power fluctuation compensation for an intensity-based optical fibre bending sensor aimed at monitoring human spine bending in a clinical environment. To compensate for the light intensity changes from the sensor light source, a reference signal was provided via the light reflection from an aluminum foil surface fixed at a certain distance from the source fibre end tips. From the results, it was found that the investigated sensor compensation technique was capable of achieving a 2° resolution for a bending angle working range between 0° and 20°. The study also suggested that the output voltage ratio has a 0.55% diversion due to input voltage variation between 2.9 V and 3.4 V and a 0.25% output drift for a 2 h measurement. With the achieved sensor properties, human spine monitoring in a clinical environment can potentially be implemented using this approach with power fluctuation compensation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Equipment Design
  • Fiber Optic Technology / methods*
  • Humans
  • Optical Fibers*
  • Posture / physiology*
  • Spine / physiology*