Communication

FPGA-Based Hardware Implementation of Homodyne

Demodulation for Optical Fiber Sensors
Abimael Jiménez 1,2,*, Ángel Sauceda 1,2, Antonio Muñoz 3, José Duarte 2 and José Mireles, Jr. 1,2

1 Applied Science and Technology Research Center, Instituto de Ingeniería y Tecnología, Universidad
Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, 450 Avenida del Charro, Ciudad Juárez 32310, Chihuahua, Mexico
2 Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Instituto de Ingeniería y Tecnología, Universidad

Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, 450 Avenida del Charro, Ciudad Juárez 32310, Chihuahua, Mexico
3 Engineering Department, Centro Universitario de la Costa Sur, Universidad de Guadalajara,

151 Independencia Nacional, Autlán 48900, Jalisco, Mexico

* Correspondence: abimael.jimenez@uacj.mx

Abstract: Homodyne demodulation is a convenient technique for signal detection in interferometric

sensors. The demodulation process is typically developed using analog circuits. However, to im-
prove the performance of the demodulator, a digital system must be employed. In this study, we
developed an optical fiber sensor by combining: a) a Michelson interferometer, b) a micro-electro-
mechanical system (MEMS) device, and c) a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based interro-
gator. Signal processing was integrated into the FPGA-embedded system. The homodyne demodu-
lation algorithm was implemented with hardware modules developed in the hardware description
language (HDL) to provide a portable, low-cost, and scalable digital system. The present study suc-
cessfully demonstrates the development and validation of an FPGA-based interrogator capable of
processing interferograms through a homodyne demodulation scheme. The experimental results
reveal proper displacement measurements of the proof-mass MEMS and the low amount of hard-
ware resources used. The displacement measurements obtained from the system matched those ob-
tained from a certified characterization system. As the system can be easily reconfigured to the re-
quired measured signal, a similar measurement methodology can be developed using other demod-
ulation schemes and optical fiber sensors.

Citation: Jiménez, A.; Sauceda, Á.;

Keywords: homodyne demodulation; optical fiber sensor; Michelson interferometer; embedded
Muñoz, A.; Duarte, J.; Mireles, J., Jr.
system; micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS); field-programmable gate array (FPGA)
FPGA-Based Hardware
Implementation of Homodyne
Demodulation for Optical Fiber
Sensors. Photonics 2023, 10, 258.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ 1. Introduction
photonics10030258 Constant progress in manufacturing techniques and precision engineering requires
Received: 13 January 2023
more precise measurement of displacements with a sub-nanometer resolution scale. In
Revised: 22 February 2023 recent years, several works have attempted to develop mechanical displacement meas-
Accepted: 23 February 2023 urement using optical interferometers [1–4]. In addition, interferometers benefit from the
Published: 28 February 2023 inherent advantages of fiber optics, including their fast response even under rough envi-
ronment variations (such as electromagnetic interferences), wide bandwidth, and low
power consumption.
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Li-
Optical fiber interferometers are well known for their ability to perform high-preci-
censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. sion measurements, due to their prominent advantages such as non-contact measure-
This article is an open access article ment, compactness, light weight, immunity to electromagnetic interference, multiplexing
distributed under the terms and con- capability, high resolution, and low cost [5–8]. Four interferometer configurations are usu-
ditions of the Creative Commons At- ally cited in the literature: Fabry–Pérot, Mach–Zehnder, Michelson, and Sagnac, as they
tribution (CC BY) license (https://cre- provide good sensitivity, accuracy, large dynamic ranges, and may cover long distances
ativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). of monitored points [9,10]. In this proposal, we use the Michelson configuration.

Photonics 2023, 10, 258. https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics10030258 www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics

Photonics 2023, 10, 258 2 of 13

These kinds of interferometers are suitable for assembling optical fiber sensor de-
vices, in which the transducer of the physical magnitude to measure is the optical fiber
itself [11]. This technology has some advantages with respect to entirely electronic trans-
ducers, such as immunity to electromagnetic interference, small size, and the possibility
of using the same optical fiber to transmit the optical information to an electronic system
[12].
The basic principle of an interferometric optical fiber sensor is that an applied stim-
ulus causes a phase shift between two light beams. An incident light beam is split into two
parts, the reference beam and the sensing beam, where the latter is affected by the variable
of interest that we want to measure. The two beams are then recombined to create an
interference pattern. This waveform, called an interferogram, has a nonlinear relationship
with the phase shift; thus, relatively complex signal processing techniques need to be ap-
plied to obtain an output signal that is proportional to the stimulus. Common techniques
include pseudo-heterodyne [13], synthetic-heterodyne [14], and homodyne [15]. Each of
these techniques has both advantages and disadvantages. However, the homodyne sys-
tem has achieved high performance, packageability, and low power consumption [15].
Therefore, an interrogator is needed to read the displacement in real time from the
optical fiber sensor. Its implementation can exclusively use analog electronic devices to
design and modify the demodulator; nevertheless, it implies a change in the circuit topol-
ogy, which entails additional difficulties in the implementation and operation of the de-
vice. In addition, miniaturization, which is important for portable applications, is difficult.
To tackle this problem, a demodulation algorithm can be implemented using a digital cir-
cuit. However, it requires the reconfiguration of hardware and several operations, with a
high consumption of hardware resources. Fortunately, field-programmable gate array
(FPGA) devices, which contain massive logic elements, large on-chip random access
memory (RAM) storage, and rich digital signal processor (DSP) units, provide a poten-
tially powerful platform to implement this scheme [16]. In addition, FPGA technology is
more convenient because of its portability, high degree of parallelism, and low power
consumption [17].
Two digital systems with the implementation of a homodyne demodulation (HD)
algorithm have been reported [18,19]. Whereas in [18], a data acquisition (DAQ) board
was used, and the acquired signal was processed using LabVIEW®®, a DSP controller
board and Simulink/C language was used in [19]. However, these types of systems are
massive, expensive, and require design redundancy to achieve high reliability and high-
speed acquisition.
On the other hand, some FPGA-based interrogators for interferometric sensors have
been proposed with different interferometers and demodulation schemes [20–25] to the
ones used in this work. In [20], a system for displacement measurements based on a mi-
crocontroller and an FPGA is developed. However, the use of intellectual property (IP)
cores, look-up table (LUT), or DSP modules is not reported. Moreover, since the pro-
cessing is executed by separate devices, the processing speed is affected. The systems pro-
posed in [21,22] are based on IP cores. The inconvenience is that the FPGA vendor’s IP
cores are usually tailored for their own proprietary platforms. They are not portable and
are frequently delivered as black boxes. Therefore, a system must be redesigned if it is
retargeted to a device from a different vendor. The hardware design of [23] was performed
by using hardware description language (HDL), but the hardware architecture is not re-
ported. The hardware designs of [4,24,25] were built in the commercial embedded system
Red Pitaya STEMlab 125-14, based on a Xilinx Zynq 7010 FPGA [26]. The disadvantages
of these systems are that the designs are limited to the capabilities of the architecture of
the system, and the code is not portable.
As can be seen, no FPGA-based HD algorithm was found, so part of the novelty is
the hardware architecture construction and its use. In this work, the interest focuses on
the digital implementation of the HD algorithm and its use to detect the proof-mass dis-
placement of our own designed micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) [27]. The
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 3 of 13

research is focused on demonstrating that the implementation of the HD algorithm in an

FPGA-based embedded system can be developed without using a vendor’s proprietary
IPs or components, taking advantage of the HDL portability, allowing for the develop-
ment of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) integrated circuits, with a variety of technol-
ogies. The proposed prototype facilitates the way towards a complete digital integration
on the chip of optical fiber sensors, which is capable of delivering real-time measurements
for vibration and displacement applications in an embedded, autonomous manner.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Optical Setup
Figure 1 shows the optical fiber Michelson interferometer configuration, where a
monochromatic laser beam of wavelength is divided by a beam splitter into a reference
( ) and a measurement ( ) beam.

Figure 1. Optical setup showing the components of the Michelson interferometer, the vibration ex-
citer, and the proof-mass MEMS [27].

Both beams travel along the sensing arm of the optical fiber. Whereas is reflected
at the end tip of the fiber, reaches the testing surface (the surface of proof-mass MEMS
in this work). Thus, travels a different path; further, the fraction of light from the op-
tical fiber that reaches the testing surface, which can be in motion or contain some of its
physical properties—such as temperature, refractive index, and thickness—may change.
Once both beams are reflected, they are coupled again into the sensing arm. Finally,
and pass through the beam splitter again and combine, generating the phenomenon
of interference [9,19].
As shown in Figure 1, the beam emitted from the LDM-4980 laser diode with =
1550 nm was passed through a circulator to avoid retroreflections in the laser. The beam
splitter is a 2 × 1 fiber coupler Thorlabs TW1550R5A1. A sinusoidal signal of 100 Hz was
generated by using a Brüel & Kjær® (Denmark) 4809 vibration exciter to stimulate the
proof-mass MEMS [28]. The modulated interference signal, generated by the Michelson
interferometer, was detected by a photodiode Thorlabs DET30B/M, which converts the
interference intensity of the reflected beams into a time-dependent electrical signal. The
expression for the output signal ( ) of the interferometer has the form:
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 4 of 13

4
( )= + cos ( ) (1)

where and are parameters that depend on interferometer values, such as the inten-
sity of the source, and the coupling and reflection coefficients of fiber optics. is the time
and is the wavelength. ( ) is the optical path difference function that accounts for
the difference in the optical path induced by the variation in the measurand with respect
to the reference fixed surface (the end tip of the sensing arm in Figure 1).
Figure 2 shows a measured amplitude of the interferometric signal and its spectrum.
The signal is obtained with the optical setup of Figure 1 for the modulated and carrier
signals of 100 Hz and 1000 Hz, respectively. The amplitude was normalized to a maximum
amplitude of 1 V. The signal is very similar to the form of Equation (1) for a sinusoidal
displacement. It can be recognized that the information of interest is inside the cosine ar-
gument of Equation (1), and the procedure to extract the information from ( ) is
known as demodulation.

Figure 2. (a) Normalized measured interferometric signal, using the optical setup of Figure 1 and
(b) its spectrum (FFT amplitude).

2.2. Demodulation Method

The homodyne demodulation (HD) scheme is the most widely used method for in-
terferometric sensing. In this method, the frequency of the light source is not changed
during the sensing process, but a phase-generated carrier is introduced as a known mod-
ulation at a known frequency, given by cos . Therefore, the information of interest is
obtained through FM demodulation [29].
The photo-intensity detected from Equation (1) can be mathematically modeled as:
4
( )= + cos cos( )+ ( ) (2)

where represents the maximum amplitude of the arbitrary phase and is the carrier
frequency [13].
Experimentally, there are several techniques for introducing the arbitrary phase,
cos . One of them is the change of laser frequency through the variation of the laser
injection current. This technique was used in this work, and it can be considered as an HD
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 5 of 13

scheme in the context that the frequencies of and are the same [9,19]. Thus, Equa-
tion (2) can be rewritten as:
( )= + cos[ cos( ) + ( )] (3)

where ( ) = ( )+ ℎ represents the optical phase to

be determined by the demodulation scheme. It not only represents the optical phase due
to the measurand, but it also includes undesirable contributions due to environmental
disturbances such as temperature, pressure, mechanical vibrations, etc.
After using Bessel function expansion in Equation (3), it can be shown that the second
term contains two orthogonal components centered at the even and odd multiples of .
This implies the mixing of the interferometer signal with and 2 (which are the low-
est odd and even components), as shown in Figure 3. The harmonics above the maximum
frequency of interest are eliminated by low-pass filtering to obtain the two components
( ) and ( ).
( )= ( ) sin[ ( )] (4)

( )= ( ) cos[ ( )] (5)

for the upper and lower branches of Figure 3, respectively. ( ) and ( ) represent the
values of the first-kind Bessel functions of order one and two, respectively. Both are eval-
uated in , which is chosen such that ( ) = ( ); therefore, the first value of that
satisfies this condition is ≅ 2.6 rad. In the proposed system, this value is adjusted
through proper selection of the amplitude of the laser’s injection current. Next, the time
derivatives of ( ) and ( ) yield:
( )= ( ) ̇ ( ) cos[ ( )] (6)

( )=− ( ) ̇ ( ) sin[ ( )] (7)

Then, multiplying ( ) by ( ) and ( ) by ( ) gives

( ) = −( ) ( ) ( ) ̇ ( ) sin [ ( )] (8)

( )=( ) ( ) ( ) ̇ ( ) cos [ ( )] (9)

Afterwards, subtracting ( ) from ( ) gives

( )= ( ) ( ) ̇( ) (10)

Finally, when Equation (10) is integrated with respect to , the information of interest
is recovered, as shown in Figure 3.

( )= ( ) ( ) ̇( ) (11)

.
Figure 3. Block diagram of the homodyne interferometric demodulation scheme, Equations (4) to
(11), as implemented on the FPGA.
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 6 of 13

2.3. FPGA Design

The digital interrogator in the optical fiber sensor system is mainly responsible for
demodulating the sensing information of the MEMS device. This analog interference sig-
nal was digitalized after signal conditioning using an analog to digital converter (ADC).
The ADC has a resolution of 12 bits and a sampling rate of 1 M samples per second (SPS).
A block diagram of the HD algorithm implemented in the FPGA-based embedded digital
system is shown in Figure 4.
The entire implementation of the embedded system hardware uses a very high-speed
integrated circuit (VHSIC) hardware description language (VHDL) with Vivado®® Design
Suite. The organization of hardware modules is based on the memory-mapped in-
puts/outputs (MMIO) method [30]. The Xilinx MicroBlaze soft-core microcontroller uses
the same address space to address both memory and I/O cores. The MMIO controller de-
codes an input signal to select and enable one of the hardware modules (slots) and can
accommodate up to 64 instantiated cores. After being wrapped with an interface circuit,
custom digital modules (oscillators, derivative, integral, etc.) can be plugged into the plat-
form [31].
From the MicroBlaze perspective, a slot is a 32-word (25-word) memory module. The
slot interface is defined as follows.
 A 32-bit signal carrying the read data (r_data).
 A 32-bit signal carrying the write data (w_data).
 An 11-bit word address for the hardware module (addr).
 A 1-bit control signal to initiate a write operation (write).
 A 1-bit control signal to initiate a read operation (read).
 A 1-bit enable (chip select) signal to activate the MMIO system (mmio_cs).
 The microcontroller must communicate with other cores. This is accomplished by the
interconnected structure of a bridge and a bus. The bridge converts the Xilinx micro-
controller native bus signals into a simple synchronous bus protocol for the MMIO
system (Figure 4).
The proposed embedded system was built around a specific application, and its con-
figuration was tailored to support the application. The software model contained three
layers [31]. The first (bottom) layer is the hardware platform specification, which captures
the relevant hardware information (microcontroller configuration, memory size, I/O
cores, etc.) required for software development and deployment. The second (middle)
layer was the board support package (BSP). It is a software library (in C++) containing
drivers and initialization routines based on information from the hardware platform spec-
ification file. The third (top) layer is the application program that uses the routines in the
BSP library to access the hardware modules. A driver acts as a translator between the
hardware module and application programs and enables the application programs to ac-
cess module functions without needing to know precise details. To obtain the final soft-
ware image file (.elf file) of the system, the software routines and BSP library were com-
piled and linked using the software development kit (SDK) of Xilinx.
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 7 of 13

32
Timer
1
1
1 UART

Microblaze GPO
Xilinx
bus GPI
w_data
read ADC

Decoder
6 to 64
Bridge

write
addr Derivate
11
mmio_cs
1 Integrator
r_data
Low pass
filter
Oscilator
2ω0
32
Oscilator
ω0
64 to 1
Mux

MMIO
controller

Figure 4. The FPGA-based implementation architecture of the interrogation controller.

2.3.1. Finite State Machine

The hardware modules of the filter, derivative, and integral require a finite state ma-
chine to maintain the previous input value. It has three internal states: The first state is
wait_new_data, where the writing operation from the microcontroller is paused, and the
previous data entered in the module are maintained. The second is processing. In this state,
a specific function of the module was carried out. The third state is waiting_data_reading,
in which the processed data are obtained by the reading operation of the microcontroller.

2.3.2. Look-Up Table (LUT)

This module is a memory array containing the output data of a function. The pro-
posed architecture optimizes the data flow path and employs two LUTs of 512 words in
length with the values of functions cos and cos 2 in the oscillator’s modules. This
method avoids the entire process involved in the calculation of the trigonometric func-
tions [25]. The software implementation of the C++ class contains the following attributes:
 A constructor that requires the address of the VHDL module.
 A writing method, which requires a 32-bit index as an input parameter.
 A read method, which receives the 32-bit data from the LUT as a result.

2.3.3. Low-Pass Filter

The low-pass finite impulse response (FIR) filter plays an important role in the em-
bedded system. It suppresses the higher components of the frequencies of the signals used
to stimulate the proof-mass MEMS (sinusoids of 200 and 100 Hz). The output sample de-
pends on the present input sample and the previous input sample. The model in the time
domain for the low-pass FIR filter is given as:

( )= ( − )= ( )+ ( − 1) + ⋯ + ( − ) (12)
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 8 of 13

where represents the filter weights or coefficients, ( − ) denotes the input values,
and represents the filter order [32]. In this preliminary version of the embedded sys-
tem, the low-pass filter was implemented through software (in C++) owing to the com-
plexity of the hardware implementation. A Hanning filter was designed in MATLAB®®
with a cut-off frequency of 120 Hz and an order of N = 141. Consequently, the generated
coefficients were used in the FPGA implementation. The filter parameters were variable
in order to adjust the cut-off frequency to the interferogram signal.

2.3.4. Derivative
The operator of differentiation was numerically approximated by a finite difference
scheme of the first order:
( ) −
≈ (13)

where is the sampling period, and are the samples of a function at times
and − . The VHDL module implementation of the derivative takes the input value,
subtracts the previous value, and divides the result by the sample time . This implemen-
tation implies that the precision of the hardware module depends on the sampling rate.
Regarding the software, the implementation of the class in C++ contained the same attrib-
utes that were used in the LUT module.

2.3.5. Integrator
The integration of the signal ( ) is the final part of the homodyne demodulator.
This operator can be approximated numerically by:

( )+ ( )
( ) = ( ) ≈ (14)
2

called the trapezoid rule, which locally approximates a curve by a straight line. Consider-
ing two points, a trapezoid can be created to obtain an approximation of the area under
the curve. The VHDL module implementation of the integral takes the previous input
( ) value, adds the input value, and divides the result by 2. This division is imple-
mented in VHDL shifting to the left position. The implementation of the class in C ++
contains the same attributes that were used in the LUT and derivative cores.
As shown in Figure 3, the demodulation algorithm must implement two derivatives.
To optimize execution times, the two functions were implemented with two hardware
modules and two objects. Both objects were identical, except for the address.

3. Experimental Results
In the present study, an FPGA-based digital system with an HD scheme is validated
by measuring the motion of a proof-mass MEMS, taking as reference the input vibration
generated with a certified characterization system. It consists of a Kistler 5022 controller,
8076 K reference accelerometer, and a Brüel & Kjær®® 4809 vibration exciter. The embed-
ded system was tested by introducing the input interferogram defined by Equation (2)
with = = 1 ( ) = 1 + cos[2.6 cos(2 × 1000 ) + ( )]. This signal had a carrier fre-
quency of = 1000 Hz and amplitude = 2.6 . The shaker generates sinusoidal sig-
nals to excite the mass. Thus, ( ) = (4 ⁄ ) sin( ) + ℎ ,
where and represent the maximum amplitude and angular frequency of the meas-
urand vibrations, respectively. Two modulated signals ( ) with an amplitude of
0.75 and angular frequencies of = 2 × 200 and = 2 × 100 were used. How-
ever, the system was tested in the frequency range of 50 to 500 Hz, which is a useful range
of this displacement MEMS sensor. The output signal of the system was obtained using
the universal asynchronous receiver–transmitter (UART) module. It establishes a serial
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 9 of 13

communication channel with a computer via a serial port, and its interface utilizes first-
in–first-out (FIFO) buffers.
Figure 5 shows the curve of the oscillator cos as was implemented in hardware,
using a LUT module of 512 words. Figure 6 shows the FFT (magnitude) response of the
low-pass filter as implemented in the FPGA. The filter has the suitable parameters to elim-
inate the harmonics above the maximum frequencies of interest of ( ), = 2 × 200
and = 2 × 100.

Figure 5. LUT values of the oscillator cos implemented in VHDL.

Figure 6. FFT (magnitude) response of the FIR low-pass filter designed in MATLAB®® and imple-
mented in the FPGA.

Figure 7 shows the input and output signals of the embedded system for a modulated
signal of 200 Hz. Figure 7a shows the input interferogram ( ). In addition, a comparison
between the output signal and the modulated signal ( ) = 0.75 cos(2 × 200 ) is
shown in Figure 7b. To change the units from radians to meters, both signals are scaled to
.

Figure 7. (a) Input interferogram for a modulated signal of 200 Hz. (b) Comparison between the
modulated signal and the output signal of the embedded system, after demodulation process and
scaled to .
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 10 of 13

Figure 8 shows a comparison between the output signal of the embedded system and
the modulated signal ( ) = 0.75 cos(2 × 100 ). The input interferogram for the modu-
lated signal of = 2 × 100 is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 9 shows the FFT (magnitude) of the displacement responses corresponding to
Figures 7b and 8. Figure 9a,b show the spectrum comparison of the embedded system
output and shaker signal when the proof-mass is excited with sine signals of 200 and 100
Hz, respectively.

Figure 8. Comparison between the modulated signal of = 2 × 100 and the output signal of the
embedded system, after demodulation process and scaled to .

Figure 9. FFT (magnitude) comparison of embedded system output and shaker signal correspond-
ing to Figures 7b and 8. (a) For = 2 × 100. (b) For = 2 × 200.

4. Discussion
Figure 5 shows that the LUTs of cosine waves can be reconfigured easily in the sys-
tem instead of the calculation of the trigonometric functions. The same method used in
Figure 5 was used in the VHDL implementation of the oscillator cos 2 .
The interest signal shown in Figure 1 was recovered correctly using the HD tech-
nique, as shown in Figs 7b and 8. That is, they describe the response of the proof-mass
MEMS to the sinusoid signal generated by the vibration exciter.
As mentioned in Section 2.3.3, the order of the low-pass filter was N = 141. However,
for > 141, the demodulator estimator presents a signal behavior that is in phase, and
the maximum and minimum values are correctly estimated. Figure 9 shows that the pro-
posed FPGA-based interrogator detects the frequencies of interest of 200, 100 Hz, and its
harmonics.
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 11 of 13

Table 1 lists the results obtained after the application of HD to the experimentally
acquired interferograms signals. The root-mean-squared (RMS) errors were calculated by
comparing the output displacement of the embedded system with the sinusoidal reference
target displacement generated by the vibration exciter.

Table 1. Maximum and RMS errors for HD technique.

Amplitude of Vibration
Target Frequency (Hz) RMS Error (nm) Max Error (nm)
(nm)
92.5 200 2.38 4.13
92.5 100 2.47 3.94

We would like to emphasize that the design implementation of the modules for the
prototype of the embedded system consumes very few resources: 6149/63400 (10%) LUTs,
32.5/135 (24%) RAM blocks, and 9/240 (4%) DSP elements on an Artix-7 FPGA. This low
consumption of hardware resources results in an efficient and portable FPGA design sys-
tem for a homodyne demodulator. This FPGA-based interrogator could be relevant in re-
cent studies based on demodulation schemes for optical fiber sensors [33–39].
The main application of the prototype is in vibration monitoring, using a MEMS sen-
sor [27]. We identified two limitations of the system. The first one is that for frequencies
greater than 800 Hz, the interrogator is limited by the size of LUTs to implement the trig-
onometric functions cos and cos 2 , but it can be solved with a module of the direct
digital synthesis of a cosine waveform. Another limitation is the sampling rate of the ADC.
However, the hardware is portable because no IP cores were used. Therefore, the system
can be implemented in a different FPGA development board with a better ADC.

5. Conclusions
This work successfully demonstrates the development and validation of an FPGA-
based interrogator capable of processing interferograms through a homodyne demodula-
tion scheme, whose principal aim is the interrogation of optical fiber sensors. The hard-
ware modules were developed from scratch in VHDL. This method offers a low consump-
tion of resources in the FPGA: on average, we only consumed 13% of the resources in the
hardware platform. Moreover, the bus protocol and device drivers were not tied to any
specific commercial platform. Thus, the embedded system is portable, and the hardware
can be synthetized for a VLSI design of an integrated circuit or reused on different FPGA
devices and prototyping boards. Our experimental findings show that our system has the
potential for engineering applications to monitor vibrations, including applications in
high electromagnetic power generation machines.

Author Contributions: Conceptualization of FPGA architecture and writing—original draft prepa-

ration, A.J.; methodology and investigation of the optical system, and characterization of the MEMS
sensor, Á.S.; formal analysis and writing—review and editing, A.M.; data curation and validation
J.D.; MEMS sensor integration, writing—review and editing, J.M.J. All authors have read and agreed
to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: The authors thank Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and Instituto de Ingeniería
y Tecnología for the usage of laboratory facilities at open user’s Centro de Investigación en Ciencia
y Tecnología Aplicada (https://www.uacj.mx/IIT/CICTA/, accessed on 10 February 2023) of UACJ.
The authors also thank the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores of Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y
Tecnología (CONACyT-México) for providing research fellowship. This work was published with
the economic support of the Instituto de Innovación y Competitividad de la Secretaría de Inno-
vación y Desarrollo Económico del Estado de Chihuahua (2022–2028), who the authors thank for
providing a partial economical support to defray article processing charges.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Photonics 2023, 10, 258 12 of 13

Data Availability Statement: Data supporting this study are openly available from OneDrive at
https://alumnosuacj-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/abi-
mael_jimenez_uacj_mx/ERQojB_110BMpe7UyOOB5HQB2V5HchzqRkOGTXZBIszaSw?e=0 × 1ftu,
accessed on 10 February 2023.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that they have NO affiliations with or involvement in any
organization or entity with any financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this
manuscript.

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