ABSTRACT
We developed a wearable swallowing assessment device using a hetero-core fiber-optic pressure sensor for the detection of laryngeal movement during swallowing. The proposed pressure sensor (comfortably attached to the skin of the neck) demonstrated a high sensitivity of 0.592 dB/kPa and a linearity of R2 = 0.995 within a 14 kPa pressure band, which is a suitable pressure for the detection of laryngeal movement. In addition, since the fabricated hetero-core fiber-optic pressure sensor maintains appreciable sensitivity over the surface of the sensor, the proposed wearable swallowing assessment device can accurately track the subtle pressure changes induced by laryngeal movements during the swallowing process. Sixteen male subjects and one female subject were evaluated in a variety of age groups ranging from 30 to 60 years old. For all subjects, characteristic swallowing waveforms (with two valleys based on laryngeal movements consisting of upward, forward, backward, and downward displacements) were acquired using the proposed wearable swallowing assessment device. Since the denoted time of the first valley in the acquired waveform determines the "aging effect", significant differences in swallowing functions among the different age groups were ultimately determined based on the time of the first valley. Additionally, by analyzing each age group using the proposed device, due to p-values being consistently less than 0.05, swallowing times were found to exhibit statistically significant differences within the same groups.
Subject(s)
Deglutition , Fiber Optic Technology , Humans , Female , Male , Adult , Middle Aged , Aging , Environment , EyeABSTRACT
This study experimentally demonstrated the effects of two polarization-maintaining fibers (PMFs) as a sensing region instead of conventional single-mode fiber (SMF) using Au-coated hetero-core optical fiber surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. We experimentally observed that the SPR resonant wavelength is shifted toward longer wavelength with refractive index (RI) increasing from 1.332 to 1.396. A PMF sensor exhibits the broad SPR spectra, resulting in a higher sensitivity with a 1.5-fold change in the light intensity at 850â nm relative to RI, compared with the SMF case. Discussions most likely responsible for this effect are given by the lower angular distribution peak in the hetero-core region of PMFs.
ABSTRACT
A novel fiber optic localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) hydrogen sensor has been developed based on the hetero-core structured with palladium nanoparticles (PdNPs) onto a cylindrical cladding surface. In a light-intensity-based experiment with an LED operating at 850 nm, it has been observed that a transmitted loss change of 0.23 dB was induced with response and recovery times of 1.5 and 3.2 s for 4% hydrogen which are the fastest response times among optical fiber hydrogen sensors. The proposed sensor resolved the inevitable trade-off issue between sensitivity and response time which existed in the previously reported SPR sensors, with keeping the response time below 2.0 s even in a high sensitivity region of interest.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, a novel pendulum-type accelerometer based on hetero-core fiber optics has been proposed for structural health monitoring targeting large-scale civil infrastructures. Vibration measurement is a non-destructive method for diagnosing the failure of structures by assessing natural frequencies and other vibration patterns. The hetero-core fiber optic sensor utilized in the proposed accelerometer can serve as a displacement sensor with robustness to temperature changes, in addition to immunity to electromagnetic interference and chemical corrosions. Thus, the hetero-core sensor inside the accelerometer measures applied acceleration by detecting the rotation of an internal pendulum. A series of experiments showed that the hetero-core fiber sensor linearly responded to the rotation angle of the pendulum ranging within (-6°, 4°), and furthermore the proposed accelerometer could reproduce the waveform of input vibration in a frequency band of several Hz order.
ABSTRACT
This paper reports the effect of applying an Au island film to the hetero-core structured optical fiber, which is fabricated by annealing thin Au films with thicknesses of 3 and 5 nm and its sensing performance for the refractive index changes. We experimentally observe that novel localized surface plasmon resonance spectra for 1.333 RIU appear in the visible-to-near-infrared region, depending on the shape of Au islands. The absorbance and spectral sensitivity for a given refractive index region of the tested solvents were obtained to be 4.81 AU/RIU and 517 nm/RIU, respectively, in the range of 1.333-1.384 RIU in the case of 5 nm thick Au film annealed at 900°C.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we present a pulse pressure waveform sensor that does not constrain a wearer's daily activity; the sensor uses hetero-core fiber optics. Hetero-core fiber sensors have been found to be sensitive to moderate bending. To detect minute pulse pressure changes from the radial artery at the wrist, we devised a fiber sensor arrangement using three-point bending supports. We analyzed and evaluated the measurement validity using wavelet transformation, which is well-suited for biological signal processing. It was confirmed that the detected pulse waveform had a fundamental mode frequency of around 1.25 Hz over the time-varying waveform. A band-pass filter with a range of frequencies from 0.85 to 1.7 Hz was used to pick up the fundamental mode. In addition, a high-pass filter with 0.85 Hz frequency eliminated arm motion artifacts; consequently, we achieved high signal-to-noise ratio. For unrestricted daily health management, it is desirable that pulse pressure monitoring can be achieved by simply placing a device on the hand without the sensor being noticed. Two types of arrangements were developed and demonstrated in which the pulse sensors were either embedded in a base, such as an armrest, or in a wearable device. A wearable device without cuff pressure using a sensitivity-enhanced fiber sensor was successfully achieved with a sensitivity of 0.07-0.3 dB with a noise floor lower than 0.01 dB for multiple subjects.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we propose a delayed transmission/reflection ratiometric reflectometry (DTR(3)) scheme using a long-gauge fiber Bragg grating (FBG), which can be used for dynamic structural deformation monitoring of structures of between a few to tens of meters in length, such as airplane wings and helicopter blades. FBG sensors used for multipoint sensing generally employ wavelength division multiplexing techniques utilizing several Bragg central wavelengths; by contrast, the DTR(3) interrogator uses a continuous pulse array based on a pseudorandom number code and a long-gauge FBG utilizing a single Bragg wavelength and composed of simple hardware devices. The DTR(3) scheme can detect distributed strain at a 50 cm spatial resolution using a long-gauge FBG with a 100 Hz sampling rate. We evaluated the strain sensing characteristics of the long-gauge FBG when attached to a 2.5 m aluminum bar and a 5.5 m helicopter blade model, determining these structure natural frequencies in free vibration tests and their distributed strain characteristics in static tests.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, a response time of the surface plasmon resonance fiber optic hydrogen sensor has successfully improved with keeping sensor sensitivity high by means of hydrogen curing (immersing) process of annealed Au/Ta2O5/ Pd multi-layers film. The hydrogen curing effect on the response time and sensitivity has been experimentally revealed by changing the annealing temperatures of 400, 600, 800°C and through observing the optical loss change in the H2 curing process. When the 25-nm Au/60-nm Ta2O5/10-nm Pd multi-layers film annealed at 600°C is cured with 4% H2/N2 mixture, it is found that a lot of nano-sized cracks were produced on the Pd surface. After H2 curing process, the response time is improved to be 8 s, which is two times faster than previous reported one in the case of the 25-nm Au/60-nm Ta2O5/3-nm Pd multi-layers film with keeping the sensor sensitivity of 0.27 dB for 4% hydrogen adding. Discussions most likely responsible for this effect are given by introducing the α-ß transition Pd structure in the H2 curing process.
