Optical
Fibre Link Emulator
Optical Fibres
in real world environments suffer a number of effects. Signal attenuation
is the most obvious but they are also subjected to switching attenuations,
polarisation mode dispersion and polarisation mode losses. In order to
see and study these effects many kilometres of fibre and highly expensive
test and simulation systems are required.
The University of Bath wanted a simple low cost system, which would be able to demonstrate some of these effects, which could be used as a teaching aid. In order to create the system, automated switching and polarisation control was required as well as control of a pulsed laser and oscilloscope.
The final system was able to demonstrate the effects of polarisation mode loss along different types of optical fibre as well as simple switching losses and attenuation. Rapid automated switching and control through a GPIB network were required in order to vary the polarisation plane of the laser light while losses were recorded and calculated on the oscilloscopes.
