High-Speed Interrogation Approach for FBG Sensors Using a VCSEL Array Swept Source

This paper presents a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) interrogator based on vertical surface cavity emitting lasers (VCSEL). A Fabry–Perot filter technique is developed to directly calibrate the dynamic wavelength behavior of VCSELs at both low and high sweep rates. A broad bandwidth light source is constructed by multiplexing five VCSELs together to increase the number of FBGs that can be tracked. Scanning of the VCSEL-array is accomplished by a high-speed electronic switch circuit. The developed interrogator achieves a sweep bandwidth of 10 nm at a scanning rate of 4 kHz. Low-velocity impact testing of a composite plate with a surface mounted FBG sensor shows that the wavelength detection error was 2.7% when compared with the FBG strain obtained by a high-speed swept laser.