| In this report a birefringent fibre optic sensor is used to measure the external pressure of a resilient tube. The interaction of the stressed resilient tube with the fibre, which is external to the tube, causes variations in the state of polarisation of the guided light. The variation of the optical power, due to changes in the state of polarisation, at the fibre output is related to the applied pressure and the results compared with theoretical predicted results.;A biomedical sensor suitable for monitoring heart rate from the finger is developed along the principles of the pressure sensor. The heart rate information is extracted from a fast fourier transform making the results independent of noises due to temperature fluctuations and movement of the finger. |
