Fiber-optic curvature sensor with optimized sensitive zone

A novel fiber-optic sensor that can measure curvature directly has been developed previously. In this paper, the transduction of curvature to light intensity is described analytically by using the geometrical optics analysis. The mathematical model allows a quantitative optimization of the sensor without having to produce many sensors with slightly different combinations of parameters in order to accomplish a similar objective experimentally. The Monte Carlo simulation by ray tracing and an orthogonal matrix are used to optimize the fiber-optic sensor’s configuration. The results show that the depth of the sensitive zone and the number of teeth are two main parameters that affect the sensor’s sensitivity and the optimum number of teeth is 55, which is in agreement with the mathematical model.