The use of a figure-of-eight coil for fibre optic respiratory plethysmography: Geometrical analysis and experimental characterisation

An optical fibre sensor based on the macro-bending loss effect has been redeveloped for thoracic and abdominal circumference measurements in non-invasive plethysmographic respiratory monitoring. A new geometrical analysis of the figure-of-eight transducer is presented, along with an optical analysis, and experimental results are presented which are in good agreement with these analyses. A comparison is made with earlier implementations of macrobending loss effect based transducers for respiratory measurement, and the newer sensor compares favourably, indicating a higher resolution and a simpler mechanical construction.