OPTICAL FIBER CONNECTION CHANGING DEVICE AND METHOD

摘要

PURPOSE: To reduce the size of an optical fiber connection changing device and to automatically change the connections of optical fibers by hand mechanisms of a robot in order to improve reliability. CONSTITUTION: This connection changing device connects or separates the arbitrary optical fibers 31 on an input side and the arbitrary optical fibers 32 on an output side. The device described above has a connecting board 21 which is juxtaposed with connecting parts to be connected with plugs at the front ends of the optical fibers, an aligning board 22 which has aligning holes for aligning and storing the plugs at the front ends of the optical fibers, hand mechanism 26, 29 which draw out and connect the optical fibers, winding mechanism 27, 30 which let off the drawn out optical fibers and a moving mechanism which moves the hand mechanisms and winding mechanisms to the arbitrary positions of the connecting board and aligning board. The device is so constituted that the plugs of the optical fibers past the aligning holes of the aligning board are connected to the connecting parts of the connecting board by arranging the connecting board and the aligning board on the same perpendicular plane or plane inclining slightly forward.