DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF NOVEL

3X3 COUPLER ALGORITHM TO

MEASURE VARYING OPTICAL PHASE
HARSHA M V
1
, PRASHIL.M.JUNGHARE
2
Department of Electronics and Communication, K S School of Engineering & Management, Bangalore.
Affiliated to VTU, Bangalore.
Email:harshamv1991@gmail.com

Abstract:
Optical fiber sensors have attracted considerable
attention in recent years as powerful measurement devices.
Optical fibers posses many advantages such as small size,
light weight and immunity to electro-magnetic interference
that meet the sensing requirements to a large extent. They
have been used in a variety of engineering applications such
as residual strain measurement in composites, thin film stress
measurement, monitoring mixed mode cracks, and gas
detection. Due to their small size and light weight, optical
fiber sensors are appropriate for embedding or surface
bonding to the structures, optical fiber sensors can be
classified according to the light parameters that are
modulated. There are three types of sensors: the intensity,
the phase and the wavelength modulated.
In this work, Mach-Zehnder optical fiber
interferometric sensor is employed to detect the phase shift.
A 3 x 3 coupler is employed to demodulate the phase shift of
the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The demodulation scheme
utilizes 3 x 3 coupler to reconstruct the signal of interest. The
demodulation scheme has the advantage of passive detection
and low cost as it requires no phase or frequency modulation
in reference arm.

Keywords: Mach-Zehnder Interferometer, Couplers.
I INTRODUCTION
Optical fiber sensors have been gathering
attention in recent years as a powerful measurement
device. Due to their small size and light weight, optical
fiber sensors are appropriate for embedding or surface
bonding to the structures. Optical fiber sensors are
classified according to light parameters that are
modulated. They are of three types: the intensity, the phase
and the wavelength modulated.
Vibrations have a significant effect on the fatigue
life of structures and may even have disastrous
consequences.
A number of sensors are available for the
measurements of a vibrating structure including strain
gauge, piezoelectric transducer, laser vibrometer,
accelerometer and optical fiber sensor. Among these
measurement devices, optical fiber sensors have received
much attention for structural health monitoring
applications.


BLOCK DIAGRAM
The below mentioned is the schematic diagram of
the demodulation scheme.

Fig. Demodulation Scheme
II WORKING & ALGORITHM
1.Mach-Zehnder Interferometer
The MachZehnder interferometer is a device
used to determine the relative phase shift between two
collimated beams from a coherent light source. The
interferometer has been used to measure small phase shifts
in one of the two beams caused by a small sample or the
change in length of one of the paths. Interferometers are
widely used in science and industry for the measurement
of small displacements, refractive index changes and
surface irregularities.
The schematic diagram of interferometer is
shown below

Fig. Mach Zehnder Interferometer
The interferometer consists of two 2 2 couplers
at the input and output. The excitation is applied to the
sensing fiber, resulting optical path difference between the
reference and sensing fibers.
The light intensity of the output of the
interferometer can be expressed as
Eq.1
Where, is the optical phase shift
n
0
is the refractive index of the optical fiber
is the optical wavelength
v
f
is the Poissons ratio
P
11
and P
12
are the Pockels constants
L
f
and
f
are the length and strain of the optical
fiber, respectively.
Since terms in front of the integral sign of Eq. [1]
are constants for any given optical fiber system, total
optical phase shift is proportional to integral of optical
fiber strain.
Integral of optical fiber strain is:

Eq. [2]
Integral of strain in Eq. [2] denotes change of
length of sensing fiber which is surface bonded onto the
host structure. The average strain of optical fiber for
optical phase shift is given as:
Eq. [3]
So, once the phase shift of the interferometer
is demodulated, we can determine the strain of host
structure using Eq. [3].
2. Demodulation of Phase Shift
To demodulate phase shift of the Mach-
Zehnder interferometer, a 3 3 coupler is employed.
The schematic diagram of the demodulation
scheme is shown in Figure 1.
As shown above, it consists of a 1 2 coupler at
the input and a 3 3 coupler at the output. The two
outputs of the 1 2 coupler comprise the reference fiber
and sensing fiber of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The
sensing fiber is surface bonded onto the host structure.
Mechanical or thermal loadings applied to the host
structure, leads to an optical path difference between the
two fibers.
The difference in the optical path induces a
relative phase shift in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer.
The two optical signals are guided into two of the three
inputs of a 3 3 coupler, where they interfere with one
another.
3. Algorithm
The methodology developed by Brown et al. [7]
for demodulation of the phase shift is adopted and briefly
described as follows.
The three outputs of the 3 3 coupler are
nominally 120 out of phase with either of its neighbors
and can be expressed as:
x1=C+Bcos[(t)] Eq.4 [a]
x2=C+B cos[(t)-120] Eq.4[b]
x3=C+B cos[(t)+120] Eq.4[c]
Where, subscripts1,2,3 represent three outputs of 3x3
coupler.
(t) is the phase shift between the sensing and
reference fibers of the interferometer;
C is the central value around which the output will
vary with amplitude B.
The DC offset C of the output can be obtained
by adding the three inputs as follows:

x1+x2+x3=3C+B{cos[(t)]+cos[(t)+120]+cos[(t)-
120]=3C Eq.5[a]
C=1/3(x1+x2+x3) Eq.5[b]
Three new parameters, y1,y2,y3 are introduced as follows:

y1=x1-C=Bcos[(t)] Eq.6[a]
y2=x2-C=Bcos[(t)-120] Eq.6[b]
y3= x3-C=Bcos[(t)+120] Eq.6[c]

The next step in the processing is to take the
difference between each of the three possible pairings of
the derivatives (y1, y2,y3) and multiply this by the third
signal (not differentiated):

d=y1(y2-y3)=3B(t)cos[(t)] Eq.7[a]
e=y2(y3-y1)=3B(t)cos[(t)-120] Eq.7[b]
f=y3(y1-y2)=3B(t)cos[(t)-+120] Eq.7[c]

Summation of equations 7[a], 7[b],7[c] gives:

N=d+e+f
=(3/2)3 B (t) Eq.[8]
Taking the squares of Equations [6a], [6b] and [6c], then
adding them, leads to:

D=y1+y2+y3
=B{cos[(t)]+cos[(t)+120]+cos[(t)-120]}
Eq.[9]
Dividing Eq. [9] into Eq. [8], yields:

Z= (D/N)=3 (t) Eq.[10]
We can integrate Eq.[10] to obtain phase shift (t)

(t)=(1/3)Zdt Eq.[11]

Thus, the strain in the host structure is readily to
be determined by substituting phase shift (t) from Eq.
[11] into Eq. [3].The phase shift demodulation is
performed using the commercial software Matlab. Figure
shows the block diagram of the demodulation process.

III NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
1 Theoretical Proved
To demonstrate the capability of the proposed
methodology in demodulating the phase shift, a numerical
example is presented. In the numerical example, the phase
shift is assumed to be a sinusoidal function with dual
angular frequencies of 34 and 50
(t)=sin(34t)+sin(50t) Eq.[12]
Substituting Eq. [12] into Equations [4a], [4b]
and [4c] leads to the three outputs of the 33coupler:

x1=C+Bcos[sin(34t)+sin(50t)] Eq.13[a]
x2=C+Bcos[sin(34t)+sin(50t)-120] Eq.13[b]
x3=C+Bcos[sin(34t)+sin(50t)+120] Eq.13[c]

Figure shows the three outputs of the 3 3
coupler where C and B are taken to be 0 and 1,
respectively.


Fig Three outputs of the 3 3 coupler
Substituting the numerical data of the three
outputs from Figure into Matlab software, follows the
process as shown in the block diagram to demodulate the
phase shift. Figure illustrates the results of phase shift
demodulated by Matlab, and compares with the exact
phase shift Eq. [12]. It appears that the demodulated phase
shift is almost the same as the exact phase shift.

Fig Comparison of the demodulated phase shift and exact
phase shift.
IV OUTPUT USING MATLAB
This example is proved in theoretically. Magnifying each
output is as below:
Input Phase Shift is as below,
For C=0 And B=1

Fig Input Phase shift
Output of X1 is as below,


Output of X2 is as below,





Output of X3 is as below,



Phase shift modulated output from matlab is as below

V APPLICATIONS
1. Residual strain measurements in composites.
2. Thin film stress measurement.
3. Gas detection.
4. Vibration measurement.
5. Strain measurement.
6. Military applications for security purpose.
7. Light weight wide aperture array.
8. Harbor surveillance program for homeland
security.
9. Seismic Sensing arrays.
10. Perimeter intruder detection.
VI CONCLUSION
Optical fiber sensors have been demonstrated for
their capability to measure the phase shift. They permit
continuous monitoring of the integrity of the host
structures. This was done using a Mach-Zehnder
interferometer incorporated with a 3 3 coupler for phase
shift measuring.
In this work, the phase shift demodulation of the
Mach-Zehnder interferometer is carried out using the
commercial software Matlab. So finally we can say that
the proposed algorithm is valid for the measuring of phase
shift in fiber.
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