A hetero-core optical fiber dendrometer for measurement of a tree growing condition

A hetero-core optical fiber dendrometer is considered to be suitable for a tree growth monitoring compared to conventional measuring methods because it has attractive features such as no influence from electromagnetic noise and independence from temperature fluctuation. In this study, a long-term measuring was especially suggested for a radial growth trend of trees. Our measuring results showed that the proposed fiber optic dendrometer could specifically detect Quercus serrata grown up 2.081mm and 0.213mm in spring-summer and in autumn-winter, respectively. Additionally, our natural environmental monitoring system could measure the minute variation of tree boundary length by every hour, therefore, is expected to be used for an application of wide area forest monitoring and agricultural control.