SBIR Phase I: Low-cost Reflectometer

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will allow the development of a new optoelectronic component, to allow improved installation, maintenance and critical network monitoring. This new optical component is a key building block in providing platform technology for new fiber optic sensors and instrumentation at a dramatically lower cost. This novel technology will open new markets not addressed by current instruments typically having much lower resolution, and higher costs. Specifically, the new optoelectronic component will be designed to produce new optical instruments that are both low-cost, and high-resolution. In this development effort, a demonstration of the new optical component will be built and optimized and characterized for several telecommunications markets, such as installation and maintenance of fiber to home, real-time monitoring of networks within data centers and other critical infrastructure for our nation. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project provides for new optical communications testing equipment to enable maintenance of critical optical networks promptly and inexpensively. This project will help to cost-effectively ensure the availability, reliability and security of the optical networks on which our nation increasingly depends. Specific commercial opportunities include: energy generation and distribution, aerospace and other mobile platforms, high speed computing high speed optical fiber data transmission to support teraflop/s and higher computing speed, and hand held and integrated fiber optic (FO) telecommunications health monitoring systems. This technology supports the installation, testing, and operations of optical systems for these markets. For the energy market, applications include low-cost high-resolution sensing and communication systems for down-hole and processing facilities as well as wind turbines sensing and communication of fiber optic networks on airplanes, ships, and other mobile platforms providing for safer, more efficient transportation systems of the future. In telecommunications, FO systems are gaining market acceptance and are being installed in neighborhoods, office buildings, fiber-to-the-home, local area networks, and wide area networks. This optoelectronic component will be the building block for new optical interrogation instruments providing customers with a FO testing solution option at an affordable price.