A reliable architecture for FBG sensor systems

In this paper, we present a reliable architecture for the fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor system. The architecture can perform a self-healing function in the event of a fiber-link failure. Such a self-healing function is constructed by using a bidirectional ring topology with a linear-cavity fiber-laser source. The fiber laser adopted in this system can enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the entire sensing network up to 50 dB. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed architecture. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.