Faseroptische Erweiterung des geodätischen Messlabors der TU Graz

The geodetic metrology laboratory of the Institute of Engineering Geodesy and Measurement Systems (EGMS) at the Graz University of Technology was established in 1990 and since then several calibration and testing facilities were set up.
Fiber optic sensing is one of the new research topics of EGMS. For engineering surveying, fiber optic strain and temperature sensing are of special interest. The sensors may be embedded in the structures and thus a new type of information is available, completing geodetic measurements. Today, a variety of fiber optic systems and sensors is commercially available, both for static and dynamic applications. The length of the sensors may be up to several metres with typical measurement resolutions in the μm-range and sampling rates up to several kHz.
However, there are no commonly used international standards for fiber optic sensing and thus it is difficult to evaluate system performance and state the uncertainty of measurement results. Therefore we established a separate fiber optic laboratory which is used for the investigation of fiber optic sensors and systems. A testing facility for the investigation of linearity was developed as well as a facility for studying temperature effects. These new facilities are described in the paper and some results are shown, demonstrating the importance of independent laboratory testing.