City Research Online

Abstract

Previous research has identified the capabilities of artificial whisker sensor arrays as an innovative method of tracking and evaluating flow events and disturbances. In this work, a new approach is put forward, focusing on achieving enhanced sensitivity and improved performance of fibre-optic whisker sensors, based on the principle of fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) based optical stress sensing. Its performance is evaluated against more simplistic approaches, and previously demonstrated methods of optically tracking the tips of whisker sensors. The study has found the performance and sensitivity of these FBG-based sensors to be very satisfactory, with sufficient sensitivity to bending stresses to enable using Cross-Correlation (CC) and multilateration techniques (as evaluated in prior studies) to produce reliable Direction of Arrival (DoA) and velocity estimations, at a typical SNR of around 2 dB. The system has shown the capability for correction of potentially disruptive variations in temperature, allowing for effective measurement of the key hydrodynamic disturbances under study, irrespective of the local environmental conditions.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	Fibre Bragg gratings, Optical fibres, Sensors, Artificial whiskers, Bio-mimicry Hydrodynamic tracking, Source localisation
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Engineering
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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