JP2951483B2 - Optical fiber fusion splicer - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical fiber fusion splicer for fusing optical fibers to each other by using discharge energy.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A fusion splicing method is widely used as one form of optical fiber connection for performing optical communication or the like. In the fusion splicing method of the optical fiber, as shown in FIG. 3, the discharge electrodes 1a and 1b are arranged to face each other with a predetermined interval 2, and the optical fibers 3a and 3b are disposed between the discharge electrodes 1a and 1b. 1a and 1b are arranged so as to face each other in a direction orthogonal to the directions of the discharge electrodes 1a and 1b.
A discharge current is supplied to the discharge electrodes 1a and 1b to generate discharge energy between the discharge electrodes 1a and 1b. The discharge energy melts the connection ends of the optical fibers 3a and 3b. The desired fusion splicing of the optical fibers 3a and 3b is performed by pressing and pressing one side of the optical fiber 3b, for example.

[0003]

In this type of fusion splicing method, a fixed discharge current is supplied from a discharge power supply 4 to perform fusion splicing of the optical fibers 3a and 3b. When the optical fibers 3a and 3b are connected by the connection method, there has been a problem that an environment changes from a sunny state to a rainy state, so that a discharge state fluctuates. The inventor of the present invention has found the cause and found that the cause is that the distribution state of the discharge energy (the distribution of the energy density) fluctuates according to the change in the environmental humidity. For this reason, if a constant current is continuously supplied from the discharge power supply 4 to the discharge electrodes 1a and 1b regardless of the environmental humidity change, the discharge energy deviates from the optimum range due to the humidity change. And the reliability of the connection is impaired.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and has as its object the purpose of always allowing discharge energy to be obtained under optimum conditions without being affected by changes in environmental humidity. An object of the present invention is to provide an optical fiber fusion splicer that can generate the optical fiber fusion splicer.

[0005]

The present invention is configured as follows to achieve the above object. That is, according to the present invention, the optical fibers connected between the facing discharge electrodes are set facing each other, a discharge current is supplied to the discharge electrodes to perform an inter-electrode discharge, and the optical fibers are fused together with the discharge energy. In an optical fiber fusion splicer to be connected, a humidity sensor for detecting an environmental humidity at the time of fusion splicing, a calculation unit for performing a correction calculation of a discharge current in accordance with the detected humidity of the humidity sensor, and a correction of the calculation unit And a discharge current control circuit that controls the discharge current based on the calculation result.

[0006]

In the present invention having the above structure, at the time of fusion splicing,
The humidity sensor detects the environmental humidity in the fusion splicing region of the optical fiber, and the detection signal is applied to the arithmetic unit. The arithmetic unit is provided with data on the relationship between humidity and discharge current in advance, and from this data and the detected humidity, an optimum discharge current value corresponding to the detected humidity is obtained by a correction operation. The calculation result of the calculation unit is applied to a discharge current control circuit, and the discharge current supplied to the discharge electrode is controlled to an optimum current value corresponding to the detected humidity. Therefore, even if the environmental humidity changes, fusion splicing of the optical fiber is performed under the optimal discharge energy distribution condition, and stable high quality fusion splicing is ensured.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In the description of the present embodiment, the same parts as those of the conventional example are denoted by the same reference numerals, and the description thereof will not be repeated. FIG. 1 shows a block configuration of an embodiment of an optical fiber fusion splicer according to the present invention. What is characteristic in this embodiment is that the value of the discharge current applied from the discharge power supply 4 to the discharge electrodes 1a and 1b is variably controlled in accordance with the environmental humidity. For this reason, in the present embodiment, a humidity sensor 5 for controlling the discharge current, an AD converter 6, an arithmetic unit 7 such as a microcomputer,
A discharge current control circuit 8 is provided.

The humidity sensor 5 detects the environmental humidity in the atmosphere in the fusion splicing area, and applies the detection signal to the AD converter 6. The AD converter 6 converts an analog signal applied from the humidity sensor 5 into a digital signal, and
Add to Graph data indicating the relationship between the absolute humidity and the value of the optimum discharge current as shown in FIG. 2 is obtained in advance by an experiment or the like and given to a memory or the like in the arithmetic unit 7. The correction calculation of the discharge current is performed based on the information on the detected humidity added from the AD converter 6. For example, in FIG. 2, the absolute humidity is H ₀ (in a specific example,
In the state of 15.2 g / m ³ ), the discharge electrode 1
When a current of I ₀ (15 mA in a specific example) is supplied to a and 1b and the optical fibers 3a and 3b are fusion spliced,
For example, when the absolute humidity changes to H ₁ (0.6 g / m ^{3 in the} specific example) during the fusion splicing operation, the optimum data for the absolute humidity of H ₁ is obtained from the relationship data between the absolute humidity and the discharge current. The current I ₁ (16 mA in the specific example) is read from the relational data and the difference ΔI between this I ₁ and I ₀ (1 m in the specific example)
A) is obtained as ΔI = I ₁ −I ₀ . Then, a value I ₁ obtained by adding the correction current ΔI to the reference current I ₀ applied to the discharge electrodes 1 a and 1 b from the discharge power supply 4 is applied to the discharge current control circuit 8.

The discharge current control circuit 8 variably controls the output current of the discharge power supply 4 from I ₀ to I ₁ based on the corrected current value I ₁ applied from the arithmetic unit 7. This allows
When the humidity changes from H ₀ to H ₁ , the discharge current becomes I ₀
Bottom is change control to I _1, discharge electrodes 1a, results discharge operation under the optimum condition corresponding to the humidity in the atmosphere between 1b is performed, the always optimally stable condition without being affected by changes in humidity Thus, fusion splicing of the optical fibers 3a and 3b is achieved.

[0010] The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but can adopt various embodiments. For example, in the above embodiment, the relationship graph data between the discharge current and the absolute humidity is given to the calculation unit 7 in advance. However, in contrast to this, the calculation unit 7 shows the relationship between the absolute humidity and the discharge current in FIG. The function of the graph shown may be given in advance as an arithmetic expression, and the value of the discharge current may be obtained by a correction operation by substituting the detected humidity obtained from the humidity sensor 5 into this arithmetic expression. Discharge current I when the absolute humidity example in this case is of an H ₁
A value of ₁ is determined directly by the correction operation, the discharge current control circuit 8, a discharge current supplied from the discharge power supply 4 discharge electrodes 1a, and 1b, it is controlled to I _1.

[0011]

According to the present invention, since the environmental humidity in the fusion splicing area is detected and the discharge current is controlled in accordance with the detected humidity, the operation of the fusion splicing utilizing the discharge energy is performed. Even if there is a change in humidity inside, the value of the discharge current that is optimal for the moment-to-moment humidity is obtained by the correction calculation,
Since the discharge operation at the discharge electrode is performed with this optimum current,
Since the fusion splicing of the optical fiber can always be performed under a stable and optimum distribution state of the discharge energy without being affected by the humidity change, the fusion splicing quality can be improved and the reliability of the fusion splicing can be improved. Can be enhanced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an optical fiber fusion splicer according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of relation graph data between an absolute humidity and a discharge current given to a calculation unit in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a general optical fiber fusion splicing method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1a, 1b Discharge electrode 3a, 3b Optical fiber 4 Discharge power supply 5 Humidity sensor 6 A / D converter 7 Operation unit 8 Discharge current control circuit

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) G02B 6/24 JICST file (JOIS)

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An optical fiber connected between opposed discharge electrodes is set facing each other, a discharge current is supplied to the discharge electrode to perform an inter-electrode discharge, and the optical fibers are fusion-spliced with the discharge energy. Sensor for detecting the environmental humidity at the time of fusion splicing, a calculation unit for performing a correction calculation of the discharge current corresponding to the humidity detected by the humidity sensor, and a correction calculation of the calculation unit An optical fiber fusion splicer having a discharge current control circuit for controlling a discharge current based on a result.