LAUSR

Displacement measurements are of significant importance in a variety of critical scientific and engineering fields, such as gravitational wave detection, geophysical research, and manufacturing industries. Due to the inherent advantages such as compactness, high sensitivity, and immunity to electromagnetic interference, in recent years, fiber optic sensors have been widely used in an expansive range of sensing applications, ranging from infrastructural health monitoring to chemical and biological sensing. Of particular interest here, fiber optic displacement sensors have gained wide interest and have evolved from basic intensity modulation-based configurations to more advanced structures, such as fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based and interferometric configurations. This article reviews specifically the advanced fiber optic displacement sensing techniques that have been developed in the past two decades. Details regarding the working principle, sensor design, and performance measures of FBG-based, interferometers-based (including the Fabry–Perot interferometer, the Michelson interferometer, and the multimode interferometer), microwave photonics-based, and surface plasmon resonance-based fiber optic displacement sensors are given. Challenges and perspectives on future research in the development of practical and high-temperature tolerant displacement sensors are also discussed.