Capacitive and Optical Sensing for Automatic Detection and Characterization of Cleaning Sponges in Fiber Optic Microduct Installations

Optical fiber duct installation requires blowing of cleaning sponges for dirt and moisture removal before blowing the fiber cables. The traditional method requires one operator that blows the sponge and one operator in the receiving end that manually evaluate the sponges until a dry sponge is received. The proposed system eliminates the need of a second operator by introducing a solution for automatic sponge detection and characterization of moisture in sponges at the receiving end. An optical sensor is used for detection and a capacitive sensor is developed to measure the sponge’s wetness. Sensor data is automatically transmitted back to the operator at the feeding end via a mobile phone. The system is characterized to work with sponges ranging from saturated with wetness to what is deemed as dry.