Patent ID: 9677916
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: G01D,G01L,G01N,G01R,G02B

Claim:
1. A monitoring system for an energy system, comprising: N>1 optical sensors, each optical sensor operating within a different wavelength range and emanating output light in response to input light, the output light having a centroid wavelength that changes in response to a sensed parameter of the energy system; a plurality of photodetectors, each photodetector configured to generate an electrical signal in response to light incident on a light sensitive surface of the photodetector; and an optical coupler including at least one input waveguide configured to receive light from the optical sensors and a plurality of output waveguides, the optical coupler configured to disperse light from the input waveguide to the output waveguides according to wavelength of light so that sensor output light emanating from each optical sensor is optically coupled through at least one output waveguide to at least one photodetector, wherein the electrical signal generated by the photodetector in response to the sensor output light provides information about the sensed parameter of the energy system, wherein: the plurality of output waveguides comprises N pairs of output waveguides; the plurality of photodetectors comprises N pairs of photodetectors; and the optical coupler is configured to spatially disperse light from the input waveguide according to wavelength so that the output light emanating from each optical sensor is optically coupled to a pair of photodetectors through a pair of adjacent output waveguides and the output waveguides in the pair are arranged and configured to allow crosstalk between the pair of output waveguides.