Application of Fiber Bragg Gratings to Wearable Garments

This paper presents a photonic system based on Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) for application to wearable garments. The objective is spanning the FBGs over the whole area of the garments for acting as sensing elements. The FBGs are embedded on a polychloroethanediyl (polyvinyl chloride, commonly abbreviated as PVC) carrier in order to increase their sensitivity to strains and for improving the simultaneous acquisition of respiratory and cardiac frequencies with only one FBG sensor. The global structure comprising FBGs and carrier allow high strain cycles and at the same time present linear behavior with the temperature, 17 pm · °C^-1. The measurements show a stable structure for temperatures up to 100°C. This brings excellent perspectives for measuring the temperature with high accuracy and range. A set of tests were done by subjecting the FBG/carrier structure (with FBG stretched and no curves) to strains up to 1.2 mm, and it was also observed a linear behaviour: e.g., displacements of 0.8 pm · με^-1. Behind its sensing enhancement operation, the carrier makes easy to mount the sensing structures.