OFS to Use Photon Kinetics Fiber Handling System

BEAVERTON, Ore., Aug. 19 -- Photon Kinetics, a Beaverton, Ore., a developer of test and measurement technology for optical fiber and cable manufacturers, announced it has signed an agreement with OFS, a maker of fiber optic and photonics products, to deploy its 1200 automated fiber handler (AFH) in OFS’s Norcross, Ga., fiber production facility. The agreement was reached after a production trial to validate the ability of the AFH to reduce overall fiber measurement time and increase operator productivity in OFS’s high-volume fiber production environment.

The AFH automates the process of stripping, cleaning cleaving and coupling fiber under test to the pigtail of a test instrument (e.g., an optical time domain reflectometer [OTDR] or chromatic dispersion measurement system). The automation of these tasks not only reduces overall fiber measurement time, but also frees the test station attendant to perform other tasks that are more difficult and expensive to automate, such as the handling of fiber spools and the loading of spools onto the AFH fiber shuttle.

OFS, formerly the Optical Fiber Solutions division of Lucent Technologies Inc., is owned by Furukawa Electric.

For more information, visit: www.pkinetics.com