The polymer optical fiber (POF) based technology has been identified with high potential in the development of optical sensors for various applications because of its low cost (specially intensity based approaches), immunity to electromagnetic interference, flexibility and robustness.
In this paper we propose a sediment concentration POF sensor able to do real time measurements, of a wide range of sediment concentration values usually found in nature.
This sensor has four LEDs with different wavelengths that are connected independently but sequentially to the emitter fiber using a coupler. The light is guided to a measurement cell where the solution sample is present. Two receiving fibers will be used to measure both transmitted (180º) and scattered light (90º).
The calibration of the sensor was performed using sediments samples collected in Mira beach, Portugal, with a median grain size of [0.2-0.25] mm. In parallel it was also performed a calibration of OBS Campbell Scientific turbidity sensors.
Results showed that the POF based sensor had higher dynamic range when compared to the commercial solution OBS.