Research on optical amplification technology in steel ball surface defect detection based on EDFA

When using fiber optic sensing technology to detect surface defects on steel balls, the conventional method of combining photodetectors with hardware amplification circuits to process detection optical signals requires a heavy workload, and its circuit system is cumbersome and complex. Doped fiber amplifiers have significant advantages for optical amplification. This article utilizes the Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) to amplify the intensity of the 1550nm detection optical signal in steel ball surface defect detection. The influence of the pumping modes and its own structural parameters on the system gain and noise of EDFA is studied. It is found that there are significant differences in the gain and noise of EDFA under different pumping modes. The structural parameters such as erbium-doped fiber length and pump power have a great impact on the system gain. The simulation of amplifying the low power optical signal of EDFA system is conducted, The designed system achieves an average gain of 36.51dB for input optical signals with powers ranging from -45 to -30dBm, resulting in high gain and low noise. Through further experimental verification, the results indicate that the designed EDFA system has significant optical amplification effect and high gain. Applying EDFA to the steel ball surface defect detection system has optimized the displacement detection performance of the detection system.