New Types of Connectors for Plastic Optical Fibres for Vehicle Network Applications

Two different types of connectors for plastic optical fibres have been developed that meet the hard environmental requirements of vehicle network applications. Both connectors, a lens connector and a planar endface connector type, are based on the same principle design. Although this design enables an easy and cheap termination process by cutting the fibre endfaces only excellent low insertion losses of the connectors between (1.3 and 1.5)dB have been achieved. Furthermore the connectors can be applied in a high temperature range between (-40 and 80)°C.