Fiber optic position sensor establishing the position of the power cut off switch

The article presents the concept and measurement results of the position sensor establishing the position of the power cut off switch arm. Composed structure uses the fiber optic head. The use of fiber optics enables to place such a sensor in the environment of strong electromagnetic fields and provides galvanic isolation. To measure the angular position of the earthing blade of the cut off switch in the range from 0 to 14° and the step equal 2.5°, the head composed of five reflective intensity-based sensors connected in parallel was used. POF (Plastic Optical Fiber, Polymer Optical Fiber) fiber optics with a diameter of 1mm were used to compose the sensor model. These fiber optics enables easy and inexpensive coupling with dedicated sources and detectors and also simple processing of optical paths in the sensor placement.