Novel fiber optic accelerometer system using geometric moire fringe

This paper presents an innovative fiber optic accelerometer system for monitoring vibration of large-size structures. The system is composed of one (or multiple) sensor head and a control unit for driving the sensor and processing sensor data. The sensing mechanism is based on a novel integration of the moire fringe phenomenon with fiber optics, resulting in accurate and reliable measurement. A prototype fiber optic accelerometer system has been successfully developed, including a sensor head, a low-cost control unit and a software package with a unique algorithm for processing the moire fringe signals into accelerations with a high resolution. Finally, free vibration and shaking table tests were performed to identify the dynamic characteristics and demonstrate the high performance of the sensor system developed in this study. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All fights reserved.