Patent ID: 7664347

Claim:
A fiber optic sensor for generating a temperature and drift corrected environmental parameter measurement, comprising: an optical fiber having a plurality of light guiding cores, at least two of the plurality of light guiding cores positioned within said optical fiber such that the light guiding cores are differentially affected by a bending of the optical fiber to measure the parameter; collocated optical measurement portions in at least two of the plurality of light guiding cores; and a mechanism configured to apply a force on the optical fiber in response to an environmental parameter incident on the fiber optic sensor; wherein one collocated measurement portion in at least one of the at least two light guiding cores experiences compression and another collocated measurement portion in at least one other of the at least two light guiding cores experiences tension resulting from the bending to provide a differential measurement between the collocated optical measurement portions that is used for the temperature and drift corrected measurement.