Optical transmission system for acquisition and measurement of the signals from the high-speed rotating shaft

The paper presents a multichannel system developed for measurement and acquisition of the small voltage signals (coming) from the strain gauges sensors placed on the fast rotating shaft. The main part of the measurement system is the rotating electronic module based on original solution using 12 bits A/D converters and simple electronic circuitry for generating single multiplexed output signal without we of microcontroller as the bottleneck when signals processing at higher frequencies is required. This single digital serial signal carrying the information of all measuring signals is being optically transmitted to the stationary receiver using some kind of "optical slip ring" and then converted into the electrical signal. This signal is then being sent via optical fiber to the remote decoder box with D/A converters where it is being decoded, demultiplexed and converted into corresponding analogue signals suitable for monitoring and further processing. The paper also presents features of the developed system, as well as suggestions for further improvements.