Microbend fiber-optic sensor.

Intensity modulation induced by microbending in multimode fibers is considered as a transduction mechanism for detecting environmental changes such as pressure, temperature, acceleration, and magnetic and electric fields. A generic microbend sensor has been defined and studied, and its components, such as sensing fiber, light source, optical fiber leads, and detector, have been examined and optimized. Finally, the generic microbend sensor has been tested demonstrating good performance.