Fiber Bragg grating sensors for infrastructure sensing

Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) based sensors provide a powerful sensing technique that can be applied to a range of structural sensing applications. A variety of different techniques have been developed for monitoring the FBG elements while permitting the multiplexing of many of these devices along a single optical fiber. There exist a wide range of demands for structural sensing from high-strain applications with a few sensing locations to applications with potentially many sensors and relatively low strains. We have developed several techniques to meet these needs that utilize optical components common in the communications industry. The basic configuration we use to monitor the FBG sensors is shown.