Liquid pressure sensing system based on distributed polarization crosstalk analysis in polarization maintaining fiber

A novel quasi-distributed liquid pressure sensing system based on distributed polarization crosstalk analysis (DPXA) in polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) is proposed and demonstrated. We design a special structure of liquid pressure sensing units and invent a corresponding nonlinear calibration method. Five sensing units deployed on a sensing tape can effectively transform the liquid pressure into the transverse-force applied on the sensing PMF, and the induced polarization crosstalk can be measured and located by the DPXA system, so as to further establish the relationship between liquid pressure and crosstalk through the nonlinear calibration method. The liquid pressure sensing system has good sensitivity and high repeatability, and a maximal measurement relative error of 8.96% is measured for the five sensing units, which can be much improved by optimizing the packaging of sensing units. We believe our sensing system will find great applications in the field of engineering liquid pressure sensing.