Fiber optic sensors have been investigated internationally for the past 15 years or so. Countless papers and articles have been published expounding on their many virtues, and everyone seems to agree with the general claims: (1) being unaffected by environmental electromagnetic fields, neither the sensors nor their interconnections require any form of shielding; (2) they are completely safe in hazardous environments because there is no possibility that a short circuit might cause sparks or heating; (3) true digital sensing is possible in some applications; and (4) the sensors themselves can be very small and light. Clearly, these features should make fiber optic sensors extremely attractive for use on aircraft and in many industrial applications. With this impressive list of attributes, why have they not yet found acceptance in military and commercial aircraft? This paper reviews several of the more common classes of fiber optic sensors and some of the solved and unsolved problems which have probably inhibited the immediate acceptance of this new technology by the aircraft industries.

Date Published: 1 February 1989
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 0985, Fiber Optic and Laser Sensors VI, (1 February 1989); doi: 10.1117/12.948822

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0985:
Fiber Optic and Laser Sensors VI
Ramon P. DePaula; Eric Udd, Editor(s)