A Polymer Optical Fiber Temperature Sensor Based on Material Features

The Role of 3D Printing Technologies in Soft Grippers

Soft grippers are essential for precise and gentle handling of delicate, fragile, and easy-to-break objects, such as glassware, electronic components, food items, and biological samples, without causing any damage or deformation. This is especially important in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, food handling, and biomedical, where accuracy, safety, and preservation of the objects being handled are critical. This article reviews the use of 3D printing technologies in soft grippers, including those made of functional materials, nonfunctional materials, and those with sensors. 3D printing processes that can be used to fabricate each class of soft grippers are discussed. Available 3D printing technologies that are often used in soft grippers are primarily extrusion-based printing (fused deposition modeling and direct ink writing), jet-based printing (polymer jet), and immersion printing (stereolithography and digital light processing). The materials selected for fabricating soft grippers include thermoplastic polymers, UV-curable polymers, polymer gels, soft conductive composites, and hydrogels. It is conclude that 3D printing technologies revolutionize the way soft grippers are being fabricated, expanding their application domains and reducing the difficulties in customization, fabrication, and production.

Perceptual Soft End-Effectors for Future Unmanned Agriculture

As consumers demand ever-higher quality standards for agricultural products, the inspection of such goods has become an integral component of the agricultural production process. Unfortunately, traditional testing methods necessitate the deployment of numerous bulky machines and cannot accurately determine the quality of produce prior to harvest. In recent years, with the advancement of soft robot technology, stretchable electronic technology, and material science, integrating flexible plant wearable sensors on soft end-effectors has been considered an attractive solution to these problems. This paper critically reviews soft end-effectors, selecting the appropriate drive mode according to the challenges and application scenarios in agriculture: electrically driven, fluid power, and smart material actuators. In addition, a presentation of various sensors installed on soft end-effectors specifically designed for agricultural applications is provided. These sensors include strain, temperature, humidity, and chemical sensors. Lastly, an in-depth analysis is conducted on the significance of implementing soft end-effectors in agriculture as well as the potential opportunities and challenges that will arise in the future.

Electrospun Core-Sheath Fibers with a Uniformly Aligned Polymer Network Liquid Crystal (PNLC)

Electrospun polymer-liquid crystal (PLC) fibers have potential applications such as wearable sensors and adaptive textiles because of their rapid response and high flexibility. However, existing PLC fibers only have a narrow responsive range and poor resistance to heat and chemicals. Herein, a new type of PLC fiber is prepared by using a coaxial electrospinning process. The core solution is 4'-pentyl-4-biphenylcarbonitrile (5CB), and the sheath solution is a mixture containing 13 wt % PVP and 10 wt % reactive mesogen (RM). After UV exposure of the fibers, 5CB in the core and RM diffusing from the core are cross-linked into an LC polymer. The fibers have a highly uniform morphology with an average diameter of 3.2 ± 0.5 μm, and mesogens inside the fibers align unidirectionally with the long axis of the fibers. The fibers show a broad phase-transition temperature range between 13.5 and 155.5 °C and have a response time of less than 10 s. The temperature range can also be controlled by adjusting components in the electrospun fibers and UV exposure time. The core-sheath fibers prepared in such a manner exhibit excellent heat and chemical resistance with reversible optical responses. Moreover, when the fibers are exposed to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as toluene, the fibers show a rapid optical response to toluene vapor within 25 s. This study demonstrates that the fibers are potentially useful for preparing flexible temperature and chemical sensors.

Electrical Disturbances in Terms of Methods to Reduce False Activation of Aerial Fire Protection Systems

The paper presents an analysis of false triggers of fire protection systems installed on aircraft. They not only cause task interruption but also have a direct impact on flight safety, forcing the crew to land in a risky area. Simulation models of electronic actuators were developed to determine the conditions under which false alarms occur. Testing of the simulation models was carried out in the computational package Matlab-Simulink and Circum-Maker for different electrical disturbance generation conditions. The simulation of overvoltage, voltage drops and voltage decays in the on-board electrical network supplying the fire protection system, occurring during the start-up of aircraft engines and during the switching on and off of on-board high-power devices, was studied. The conducted studies have practical applications since the simulation results are an important element for planning experimental tests of the SSP-FK-BI executive blocks under electrical disturbance conditions. Based on the simulation and experimental studies, the conditions causing false tripping of the fire protection system and the parameters for selected disturbance factors have been determined.

Metasurface Micro/Nano-Optical Sensors: Principles and Applications

Metasurfaces are 2D artificial materials consisting of arrays of metamolecules, which are exquisitely designed to manipulate light in terms of amplitude, phase, and polarization state with spatial resolutions at the subwavelength scale. Traditional micro/nano-optical sensors (MNOSs) pursue high sensitivity through strongly localized optical fields based on diffractive and refractive optics, microcavities, and interferometers. Although detections of ultra-low concentrations of analytes have already been demonstrated, the label-free sensing and recognition of complex and unknown samples remain challenging, requiring multiple readouts from sensors, e.g., refractive index, absorption/emission spectrum, chirality, etc. Additionally, the reliability of detecting large, inhomogeneous biosamples may be compromised by the limited near-field sensing area from the localization of light. Here, we review recent advances in metasurface-based MNOSs and compare them with counterparts using micro-optics from aspects of physics, working principles, and applications. By virtue of underlying the physics and design flexibilities of metasurfaces, MNOSs have now been endowed with superb performances and advanced functionalities, leading toward highly integrated smart sensing platforms.

Temperature Sensor Based on Periodically Tapered Optical Fibers

In this paper, the fabrication and characterization of a temperature sensor based on periodically tapered optical fibers (PTOF) are presented. The relation between the geometry of the sensors and sensing ability was investigated in order to find the relatively simple structure of a sensor. Four types of PTOF structures with two, four, six and eight waists were manufactured with the fusion splicer. For each PTOF type, the theoretical free spectral range (FSR) was calculated and compared with measurements. The experiments were conducted for a temperature range of 20–70 °C. The results proved that the number of the tapered regions in PTOF is crucial, because some of the investigated structures did not exhibit the temperature response. The interference occurring inside the structures with two and four waists was found be too weak and, therefore, the transmission dip was hardly visible. We proved that sensors with a low number of tapered regions cannot be considered as a temperature sensor. Sufficiently more valuable results were obtained for the last two types of PTOF, where the sensor’s sensitivity was equal to 0.07 dB/°C with an excellent linear fitting (R² > 0.99). The transmission dip shift can be described by a linear function (R² > 0.97) with a slope α > 0.39 nm/°C.

Sensing Applications in Aircrafts Using Polymer Optical Fibres

We report on recent advances in the use of inexpensive polymer optical fibres (POFs) for sensing applications in avionics. The sensors analysed in this manuscript take advantage of the unique properties of polymers, such as high flexibility, elasticity, and sensitivity, and they range from strain, elongation, and vibration interrogators to level and temperature meters, leading to cost-effective techniques for structural health monitoring in aircraft structures. We also highlight recent power-supply methods using Power-over-POF in order to feed sensors remotely, and we discuss the constraints imposed by connectors on the performance of POF networks in aircrafts.

Temperature sensing utilizing unclad plastic optical fiber with a balloon-like bent structure

A plastic optical fiber (POF) temperature sensor with high sensitivity is experimentally demonstrated in this work. The temperature sensor is realized by a combination of macrobending and an unclad region in the fabrication of its sensor head. The POF sensor is bent into a balloon-like structure in order to introduce the effect of macrobending. For the optimization of the sensor performance, the bending radius of the balloon-like structure is varied. Experimental results suggest that the performance is optimized when the bending radius is fixed at 55 mm. With this amount of bending radius, temperature sensitivity of up to ${22.2} \times {{1}}{{{0}}^{- 3}}^\circ {{\rm{C}}^{- 1}}$ can be achieved in the range from 40°C to 80°C, with linearity of 0.99 and resolution of 0.45°C. This technique is found to improve the POF temperature sensitivity in comparison to previous developments.

Dynamic Characterisation of Fibre-Optic Temperature Sensors for Physiological Monitoring

Fast, miniature temperature sensors are required for various biomedical applications. Fibre-optics are particularly suited to minimally invasive procedures, and many types of fibre-optic temperature sensors have been demonstrated. In applications where rapidly varying temperatures are present, a fast and well-known response time is important; however, in many cases, the dynamic behaviour of the sensor is not well-known. In this article, we investigate the dynamic response of a polymer-based interferometric temperature sensor, using both an experimental technique employing optical heating with a pulsed laser, and a computational heat transfer model based on the finite element method. Our results show that the sensor has a time constant on the order of milliseconds and a -6 dB bandwidth of up to 178 Hz, indicating its suitability for applications such as flow measurement by thermal techniques, photothermal spectroscopy, and monitoring of thermal treatments.

Structural Health Monitoring Using Fibre Optic Acoustic Emission Sensors

Acoustic emission (AE) is widely used for condition monitoring of critical components and structures. Conventional AE techniques employ wideband or resonant piezoelectric sensors to detect elastic stress waves propagating through various types of structural materials, including composites during damage evolution. Recent developments in fibre optic acoustic emission sensors (FOAES) have enabled new ways of detecting and monitoring damage evolution using AE. An optical fibre consists of a core with a high refractive index and a surrounding cladding. The buffer layer and outer jacket both act as protective polymer layers. Glass optical fibres can be used for manufacturing AE sensors of sufficiently small size to enable their embedding into fibre-reinforced polymer composite materials. The embedding process protects the FOAES against environmental stresses prolonging operational lifetime. The immunity of FOAES to electromagnetic interference makes this type of sensor attractive for condition monitoring purposes across a wide range of challenging operational environments. This paper provides an exhaustive review of recent developments on FOAES including their fundamental operational principles and key industrial applications.

Single nanosecond-pulse production of polymeric fiber Bragg gratings for biomedical applications

In this study, we present first-time fabrication of FBGs in all ZEONEX-based SMPOFs with a single 25 ns pulse of 248 nm UV irradiation over a 12-month period, which opens up new frontiers in optics and photonics for the effective fabrication of polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings (POFBGs), permitting mass producibility of them. POFBGs were characterized by subjecting them to various physical parameters including temperature and tensile strain. Strain responses of FBGs with similar grating strengths fabricated with 248 nm and 325 nm He-Cd laser irradiations were explored over a year to demonstrate their long-term stability and applicability. Owing to the unique features of the proposed sensing device fabricated by embedding POFBGs in silicone rubber, a good performance in the detection of human heart rate with an amplitude of 4 pm, which is 4 times higher compared to that of silica single mode fiber (SMF) was demonstrated. The response of the sensing device during a human respiration process was also explored where exhalation and inhalation were monitored and distinguished while the breath was held. These revelations signify the importance of ZEONEX-based POFBGs, which allow consistent and effective grating fabrication and are highly promising in the foreseeable future for biomedical applications.

Upconversion Nanocrystal Doped Polymer Fiber Thermometer

In recent years, lanthanide-doped nanothermometers have been mainly used in thin films or dispersed in organic solvents. However, both approaches have disadvantages such as the short interaction lengths of the active material with the pump beam or complicated handling, which can directly affect the achievable temperature resolution. We investigated the usability of a polymer fiber doped with upconversion nanocrystals as a thermometer. The fiber was excited with a wavelength stabilized diode laser at a wavelength of 976 nm. Emission spectra were recorded in a temperature range from 10 to 35 ∘C and the thermal emission changes were measured. Additionally, the pump power was varied to study the effect of self-induced heating on the thermometer specifications. Our fiber sensor shows a maximal thermal sensitivity of 1.45%/K and the minimal thermal resolution is below 20 mK. These results demonstrate that polymer fibers doped with nanocrystals constitute an attractive alternative to conventional fluorescence thermometers, as they add a long pump interaction length while also being insensitive to strong electrical fields or inert to bio-chemical environments.

Impact of high UV fluences on the mechanical and sensing properties of polymer optical fibers for high strain measurements

PMMA-based fibers are widely studied for strain measurements and show repeatable results for Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) inscribed using 325 nm laser and 248 nm laser. However, there is no available material mechanical behavior characterization of the UV source impact on the fiber properties. In this manuscript, fibers are irradiated with high fluence of 325 nm and 248 nm lasers and the fibers properties are investigated using dynamic mechanical analysis and tensile strain for potential use of these fibers past the yield point. It is demonstrated that the UV sources shifted the ultimate tensile strength and changed the strain hardening behavior. Tensile strain measurements show excellent repeatability for gratings inscribed with these two sources with similar sensitivity of 1.305 nm/mɛ for FBG inscribe with 325 nm laser, and 1.345 nm/mɛ for grating written with 248 nm laser in the range 0 to 1.5 % elongation. Furthermore, tests far beyond the yield point (up to 2.8 % elongation) show that grating inscribed with lower UV wavelength exhibit hysteresis. Finally, we demonstrate that 248 nm laser fluence shall be chosen carefully whereas even high 325 nm laser fluence do not critically impact the sensor properties.

Gas Pressure Sensor Based on BDK-Doped Polymer Optical Fiber

This paper presents a high sensitivity gas pressure sensor with benzyl-dimethylketal (BDK)-doped polymer optical fiber Bragg grating (POFBG), whose sensitivity is up to 8.12 pm/kPa and 12.12 pm/kPa in positive and negative pressure atmosphere, respectively. The high sensitivity can be explained by its porous chemical structure. The stability and response behavior under air pressure atmosphere has also been investigated. The new understanding of the air pressure response principle and sensitivity difference for the presented sensor can be a worthy reference.

A Polymer Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder Interferometer Sensor Model Based on Electrode Thermal Writing Waveguide Technology

This paper presents a novel electrode thermal writing waveguide based on a heating-induced refractive index change mechanism. The mode condition and the electrode thermal writing parameters were optimized, and the output patterns of the optical field were obtained in a series of simulations. Moreover, the effect of various adjustments on the sensing range of the nanoimprint M–Z temperature sensor was analyzed theoretically. A refractive index asymmetry Mach–Zehnder (M–Z) waveguide sensor with a tunable refractive index for a waveguide core layer was simulated with a length difference of 946.1 µm. The optimal width and height of the invert ridge waveguide were 2 μm and 2.8 μm, respectively, while the slab thickness was 1.2 μm. The sensing accuracy was calculated to range from 2.0896 × 10⁴ to 5.1252 × 10⁴ in the 1.51–1.54 region. The sensing fade issue can be resolved by changing the waveguide core refractive index to 0.001 via an electrode thermal writing method. Thermal writing a single M–Z waveguide arm changes its refractive index by 0.03. The sensor’s accuracy can be improved 1.5 times by the proposed method. The sensor described in this paper shows great prospects in organism temperature detection, molecular analysis, and biotechnology applications.

Polymer Optical Fiber Sensors in Healthcare Applications: A Comprehensive Review

Advances in medicine and improvements in life quality has led to an increase in the life expectancy of the general population. An ageing world population have placed demands on the use of assistive technology and, in particular, towards novel healthcare devices and sensors. Besides the electromagnetic field immunity, polymer optical fiber (POF) sensors have additional advantages due to their material features such as high flexibility, lower Young’s modulus (enabling high sensitivity for mechanical parameters), higher elastic limits, and impact resistance. Such advantages are well-aligned with the instrumentation requirements of many healthcare devices and in movement analysis. Aiming at these advantages, this review paper presents the state-of-the-art developments of POF sensors for healthcare applications. A plethora of healthcare applications are discussed, which include movement analysis, physiological parameters monitoring, instrumented insoles, as well as instrumentation of healthcare robotic devices such as exoskeletons, smart walkers, actuators, prostheses, and orthosis. This review paper shows the feasibility of using POF sensors in healthcare applications and, due to the aforementioned advantages, it is possible to envisage a further widespread use of such sensors in this research field in the next few years.

A High Sensitivity Temperature Sensing Probe Based on Microfiber Fabry-Perot Interference

In this paper, a miniature Fabry-Perot temperature probe was designed by using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to encapsulate a microfiber in one cut of hollow core fiber (HCF). The microfiber tip and a common single mode fiber (SMF) end were used as the two reflectors of the Fabry-Perot interferometer. The temperature sensing performance was experimentally demonstrated with a sensitivity of 11.86 nm/°C and an excellent linear fitting in the range of 43-50 °C. This high sensitivity depends on the large thermal-expansion coefficient of PDMS. This temperature sensor can operate no higher than 200 °C limiting by the physicochemical properties of PDMS. The low cost, fast fabrication process, compact structure and outstanding resolution of less than 10^-4 °C enable it being as a promising candidate for exploring the temperature monitor or controller with ultra-high sensitivity and precision.

Recent Developments for Flexible Pressure Sensors: A Review

Flexible pressure sensors are attracting great interest from researchers and are widely applied in various new electronic equipment because of their distinct characteristics with high flexibility, high sensitivity, and light weight; examples include electronic skin (E-skin) and wearable flexible sensing devices. This review summarizes the research progress of flexible pressure sensors, including three kinds of transduction mechanisms and their respective research developments, and applications in the fields of E-skin and wearable devices. Furthermore, the challenges and development trends of E-skin and wearable flexible sensors are also briefly discussed. Challenges of developing high extensibility, high sensitivity, and flexible multi-function equipment still exist at present. Exploring new sensing mechanisms, seeking new functional materials, and developing novel integration technology of flexible devices will be the key directions in the sensors field in future.

Material features based compensation technique for the temperature effects in a polymer diaphragm-based FBG pressure sensor

Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) based sensors have been applied to measure several parameters, such as pressure, vibration, liquid level, humidity, the concentration of chemical compounds, among others. An approach to measure parameters like liquid level, pressure and vibration are to embed the FBG on a diaphragm, which is generally made of a polymeric material. Nevertheless, the mechanical properties of polymers depend on temperature variation. For this reason, a polymer diaphragm can enhance the cross-sensitivity between the strain and temperature on an FBG sensor. In order to overcome this limitation, this paper presents a compensation technique for the temperature effects on an oblong polymer diaphragm-based FBG pressure sensor. The presented technique is based on the analytical model of the sensor, which takes into account the variation of the diaphragm properties with temperature obtained through a dynamic mechanical analysis of the diaphragm material. Results show that the developed technique reduces the sensor cross-sensitivity to about 1.74 Pa/°C. Furthermore, the presented technique is compared with the direct difference between the FBG strain and temperature responses presented in reference works. The comparison shows a better performance of the technique presented in this paper with respect to the cross-sensitivity and the root mean squared error.

Optical Strain Measurement with Step-Index Polymer Optical Fiber Based on the Phase Measurement of an Intensity-Modulated Signal

Polymer optical fibers (POFs) have been proposed for optical strain sensors due to their large elastic strain range compared to glass optical fibers (GOFs). The phase response of a single-mode polymer optical fiber (SM-POF) is well-known in the literature, and depends on the physical deformation of the fiber as well as the impact on the refractive index of the core. In this paper, we investigate the impact of strain on a step-index polymer optical fiber (SI-POF). In particular, we discuss the responsivity of an optical strain sensor which is based on the phase measurement of an intensity-modulated signal. In comparison to the phase response of an SM-POF, we must take additional influences into account. Firstly, the SI-POF is a multi-mode fiber (MMF). Consequently, we not only consider the strain dependence of the refractive index, but also its dependency on the propagation angle θz. Second, we investigate the phase of an intensity-modulated signal. The development of this modulation phase along the fiber is influenced by modal dispersion, scattering, and attenuation. The modulation phase therefore has no linear dependency on the length of the fiber, even in the unstrained state. For the proper consideration of these effects, we rely on a novel model for step-index multi-mode fibers (SI-MMFs). We expand the model to consider the strain-induced effects, simulate the strain responsivity of the sensor, and compare it to experimental results. This led to the conclusion that the scattering behavior of a SI-POF is strain-dependent, which was further proven by measuring the far field at the end of a SI-POF under different strain conditions.

Polymer Optical Fiber Bragg Gratings in CYTOP Fibers for Angle Measurement with Dynamic Compensation

This paper demonstrates the use of polymer optical fiber Bragg gratings (POFBGs) for angle measurements over a range of different oscillatory frequencies. The POFBGs are inscribed in low-loss, cyclic transparent amorphous fluoropolymers (CYTOP) and are imprinted using the direct-write, plane-by-plane femtosecond laser inscription method. As the polymer has a viscoelastic response and given that the Young's modulus depends on the oscillatory frequency, a compensation technique for sensor frequency cross-sensitivity and hysteresis is proposed and verified. Results show that the proposed compensation technique is able to provide a root mean squared error (RMSE) reduction of 44%, and a RMSE as low as 2.20° was obtained when compared with a reference potentiometer. The hysteresis reduction provided by the proposed technique is 55%, with hysteresis <0.01. The results presented in this paper can pave the way for movement analysis with POFBG providing higher sensitivity and low hysteresis over a large range of motion frequencies.

Strain, temperature, moisture, and transverse force sensing using fused polymer optical fibers

This paper presents the characterization of polymer optical fibers (POFs) submitted to the catastrophic fuse effect towards intensity-variation-based sensing of strain, transverse force, temperature, and moisture. In the experiments, POFs with and without the fuse effect are tested and the results are compared with respect to the sensitivity, linearity, and root mean squared error (RMSE). The fused POFs have higher linearity and lower RMSE than non-fused POFs in strain and transverse force sensing. Also, the sensitivity of the fused POFs is higher in transverse force and temperature sensing, which can be related to the higher sensitivity to the curvature that the transverse force creates on the POF and to the more significant variations of the refractive index with temperature increase. Additionally, the fused POFs present lower moisture absorption than the non-fused POFs. The presented results indicate a great potential of the fused POFs intensity-variation-based sensing applications of various physical parameters.

Measurement of Temperature and Relative Humidity with Polymer Optical Fiber Sensors Based on the Induced Stress-Optic Effect

This paper presents a system capable of measuring temperature and relative humidity with polymer optical fiber (POF) sensors. The sensors are based on variations of the Young’s and shear moduli of the POF with variations in temperature and relative humidity. The system comprises two POFs, each with a predefined torsion stress that resulted in a variation in the fiber refractive index due to the stress-optic effect. Because there is a correlation between stress and material properties, the variation in temperature and humidity causes a variation in the fiber’s stress, which leads to variations in the fiber refractive index. Only two photodiodes comprise the sensor interrogation, resulting in a simple and low-cost system capable of measuring humidity in the range of 5–97% and temperature in the range of 21–46 °C. The root mean squared errors (RMSEs) between the proposed sensors and the reference were 1.12 °C and 1.36% for the measurements of temperature and relative humidity, respectively. In addition, fiber etching resulted in a sensor with a 2 s response time for a relative humidity variation of 10%, which is one of the lowest recorded response times for intrinsic POF humidity sensors.