Fiber Laser methane sensor and its application in coal mine safety

Using the technology of tuneable diode laser absorption spectroscopy and the technology of micro-electronics, a fiber laser methane sensor based on C8051F410 is given. We use the DFB Laser as the light source of the sensor. By tuning temperature and driver current of the DFB laser, we can scan the laser over the methane absorption line, we realize the methane detection. It makes the real-time and online detection of methane concentration to be true, and it has the advantages just as high accuracy, immunity to other gases, long calibration cycle and so on. The sensor has the function of self-diagnose, the soft will alarm when the probe in a fault status, then it improve the dependence of the measurements. In coal mine safety, the proportion of gas accidents are improving continuously, Since for the coal mine safety, the personnel safety and the environment protection, it is very important to realize the real-time online detection of methane in coal mine. In this paper, some data that coming from the application of sensor in the field of coal mine is given. And we also do some analysis of the data. At last, according to the actual situation of the transducer in coal mine, we list some problems and the direction of further improvements. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Select ion and/or peer-review under responsibility of China Academy of Safety Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology(Beijing), McGill University and University of Wollongong.