Fiber optic displacement sensor

Abstract

A fiber optic displacement sensor includes a flexural disk assembly affixed to mounting post that extends from a support base. The flexural disk assembly is mounted in a housing. Spiral wound optical fiber coils are mounted on opposite sides of the flexural disk with optical fiber leads extending from both the inner and outer diameters of the optical fiber coils. Optical signals output from the coils are coupled together to form an interferometer. An inertia ring connected to the periphery of the flexural disk. has a plurality of peripheral slots therein for routing the optical fiber leads from the first and second optical fiber coils to other components in the housing. The inertia ring has curved side edges formed such that the optical fiber leads may be spiral wound thereon between the first and second coils and the peripheral slots to prevent damage to the optical fiber leads from sharp bends. The slots in the inertia ring are arranged to allow differing lengths of fiber to be wound circumferentially in different depth slots to accommodate mismatches in optical fiber lead lengths, which allows both the fiber leads from the first and second fiber coils to ultimately exit the coil assembly together and take the same path to the coupler to provide improved common mode rejection of extraneous environmentally-induced phase shifts.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.