Error Analysis and Experimental Research of Temperature/Strain Sensing Based on Few-Mode Fiber Bragg Grating

To solve the temperature/strain cross-sensitivity problem, simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain can be achieved by using the two spectra of LP01 mode and LP11 mode in few-mode fiber Bragg grating (FM-FBG). However, in the same fiber the temperature/strain sensitivity difference is small, so the sensing accuracy is limited greatly. In this paper, we calculate the relation between sensing accuracy and sensitivity-difference and obtain that the enlarged sensitivity difference could improve the sensing accuracy. FBGs are engraved on two kinds fibers single-mode (SM) and few-mode (FM) with different geometrical dimensions; the sensing coefficients of LP01 mode in SM-FBG and LP11 mode/LP01 mode in FM-FBG are calibrated firstly and then are used to sense the temperature/strain. The experimental results show that parallelly using LP01 mode in SM-FBG and LP11 mode in FM-FBG achieves simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain, and error is reduced greatly compared with the sensing results using LP11 mode and LP01 mode in FM-FBG or using LP01 mode in SM-FBG and LP01 mode in FM-FBG, where the wavelength-temperature/strain coefficient difference is maximum. The temperature measurement error is 1.64 degrees C, and the strain measurement error is 20.04 mu epsilon, which is consistent with the theoretical analysis. The sensing results provide technical reference for FBG multi-parameter sensing measurement and the practical engineering application.