Creating added value through a combination of history and new ideas. Story behind the development of the “遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer”, an essential device for connecting optical fiber

Communication using the Internet has become important infrastructure that is essential for daily life, including Internet searches, social media, watching videos and online meetings and classes. The volume of data travelling through the Internet has rapidly increased in recent years. As a result, the optical fiber that supports the Internet also needs to have 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rther increased capacity.

As the name suggests, 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金tical fiber is “fiber that transmits light”. It contains a core made of glass or plastic that transmits light. Traditionally, most 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金tical fiber products were single core, which means there was one core in each fiber. However, in recent years, “multicore fiber” has been devel遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ed with several cores in each fiber to make larger volume data communications possible.

General-use 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金tical fiber conforming to international standards has a diameter of 125μm (0.125mm). This is the same thickness as one strand of hair. Multicore fiber normally contains 4-5 cores with a diameter of 10μm each, and fiber with a slightly larger diameter contains 19 cores. It is planned to install this fiber mainly as long-length submarine cable.

Delivering data to distant countries requires extremely long optical cable installed on the seafloor. However, the maximum length of optical cable that can be manufactured at the factory is slightly less than 100km. Therefore, in order to link Japan and the West Coast of the United States, a distance of about 9,000km, it is necessary to connect the optical cable and the optical fiber inside a total of 90 times. A device called a “遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer” is used for these connections.

遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rukawa Electric had already developed and manufactured 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicers for single core optical fiber, but developing a 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer for multicore fiber was extremely difficult and involved a number of challenges.

遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicers heat the ends of two strands of abutting multicore fiber, and the fibers are connected by the surface tension generated when the ends melt. The cross-section of multicore fiber contains a “marker” that is smaller than the cores. Using this marker as a guide, the individually numbered cores are connected, but when connecting the cores, it is necessary to ensure the fiber is aligned correctly. If the cores are not aligned exactly, light leaks from the connection, reducing the intensity of the light and decreasing the transmission speed.

However, talking about “connections” is simple, but the real challenge is accurately connecting cores arranged within a fiber that is the same thickness as a human hair. The development team needed to create an extremely high precision 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer.

The first challenge faced by the developers was “how the fiber should look” when connecting multicore fiber. Because multicore fiber has a complex cross-sectional structure, it was unknown how the fiber should look in order to ensure accurate 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splices.

In response to this, the devel遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ment team commenced a light tracking simulation. While rotating the multicore fiber, light was applied from the side, and data on the transmitted light was obtained. Based on this data, technology for identifying the position of the marker and cores was devel遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ed using image analysis, and it was possible to grasp “how the fiber should look” when connecting multicore fiber.

Also, the images recorded when actually sp遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金cing contained various noise, but because the “way the fiber should look” was already known, it was possible to estab遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sh a method for e遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金minating this noise.

In addition, multicore fiber is still in its infancy, and the structure has not been standardized. Therefore, the dimensions of the fiber manufactured by each manufacturer differ slightly, and this was also an issue. Despite issues such as this, because the “way the fiber should look” had already been identified, it was possible to success遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金lly minimize the impact on splicing.

Ideas provided by young engineers became hints for devel遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ment, and their fresh perspectives, which surprised even the veteran engineers, 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ened the way forward to devel遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ment, and the team as a whole had high motivation.

In this way, 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rukawa Electric’s 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer achieved 100% core position recognition in multicore fiber, but the next issue to be addressed was “splicing time”.

When instal遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ng multicore fiber in actual telecommunications worksites, short sp遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金cing time is a requisite. The longer each sp遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ce takes, the longer the overall project will last, resulting in higher costs, such as personnel expenses.

However, when gathering a lot of information and performing a number of calculations in order to accurately connect multicore fiber, it takes a long time to complete the image analysis. Splicing single core fiber takes about 10 seconds per fiber. Compared to this, during early devel遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ment in the summer of 2021, it took 24 minutes to splice a multicore fiber. This result was still far from the level required for commercialization.

The development team set the goal of reducing the 24 minutes by at least 90% and worked to reduce the splicing time. Through numerous innovations including improvements to the calculation method for image analysis, less than 2 years following the first success遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金l splice, it was possible to reduce splicing time to 1 minutes 30 seconds in the spring of 2023. Today, research continues with the aim of reducing the time it takes to splice a four core multicore fiber to just 40 seconds, which is 4 times the length it takes to splice a standard single core fiber.

The 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer realized higher performance while actively incorporating the ideas from young engineers, but the extensive use of the technology accumulated by 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rukawa Electric is also one of the main features.

General-use 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicers apply voltage to heat the optical fiber placed between two discharge electrodes facing each other. However, 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rukawa Electric’s 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer surrounds and heats the optical fiber from three directions. This technology was originally used for splicing large-diameter optical fiber for optical fiber lasers, but it was applied to evenly heat multicore fiber, which has cores dispersed more toward the edges rather than the center.

In this way, the 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicer developed through a combination of various technologies can be said to be the fruit of 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rukawa Electric’s technology. Supporting this achievement is the long history of research and accumulated experience starting from the first appearance of optical fiber almost 50 years ago, as well as the mindset of actively taking on the challenge of developing new technology.

There is a special feeling of accomplishment when realizing the fruits of this labor by combining the accumulated knowledge and new ideas, and it 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rther energizes the development workplace.

Development of multicore fiber itself has just begun within the industry, and the market for this product has great growth potential in the 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金ture. On the other hand, optical fiber is now widely used around the world and is increasingly becoming commodified. The same is true for 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金sion splicers. Given these trends, 遊雅堂 クレジットカード 出金rukawa Electric continues to place great importance on “providing high added value through the product and maximizing customer satisfaction”. Rather than focus only on price, by leveraging the high technological capabilities that are trusted by the customer, we will continue to take on new challenges and contribute to society.