Attenuation splice control in the manufacture of fiber optical communication system

Attenuation splice is an important process in the manufacture of fiber optical communication systems. The method proposed in this brief paper is superior to the splice vendors´ methods because of the accuracy of the insertion loss, the efficiency in terms of the least number of resplice trials, and the robustness to the different operation conditions. This system includes a laser source and a power meter as the measurement feedback. The measurement error and the compensation formula is discussed. Since the power meter measurement cannot be updated quickly enough to meet the requirements of the real time control system, a multirate Kalman filter is adopted. This method may be used in a broad class of systems that need to update the state estimation in a rate faster than the rate of measurement. The application of this system has become a key technology in a fiber optical communication system manufacturing process.