Detecting and measuring interconnection reflectance in fiber optic cable assemblies with a video microscope

Two very expensive pieces of test equipment, the high resolution optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) and the optical backscatter reflectometer (OBR) can quantitatively measure the reflectance of interconnections in short fiber optic cable assemblies. In this paper, the authors propose a simpler method to qualitatively measure interconnection reflectance in avionic and aerospace fiber optic cable assemblies with less sophisticated equipment and more quickly determine the status of the communication link.