Optical Fiber Fusion Splicing: A Comparative Survey

Fiber optic cables find many different uses in various industries. They have several applications like they can be used as imaging tools or to perform laser surgeries. Besides being used to transmit data, they are also used as hydrophones for seismic waves and Sound Navigation Ranging. Data transmission accuracy and speed can be improved a lot by using optical fibers and are also used in several networks for connections. In some cases, the available fiber optic cable length is less and not long enough according to the requirement. In this scenario, we can splice the two cables to make a permanent join with the optical fiber fusion splicing machine. To form long optical links for long-distance better optical signal transmission, this splicing technique is used in optical fiber communication. Fusion splicing is used for this purpose. In this process, welding using an electric arc is done to wield (fuse) together with two optical fibers. Fusion splicing provides virtually no back reflection and the lowest insertion loss, making it the most widely used splicing technique. A Fusion Splicer machine can be used to provide a well-founded and robust joint between the two optical fibers. By an automatic machine called fusion splicer, fusion splicing provides the strongest joint between two fibers. In this paper, we are reviewing the image processing algorithms used to align fibers and reduce the fusion splicing loss.