MCU for optical fibers

I am working on a project where I would like use optical fibers as sensors for measuring strain, perturbance and shape sensing. The required hardware and measurement devices are usually very expensive and thus inappropriate in my case, so I was wondering if there are any solutions available with commercial microcontrollers, which would consequently drastically lower the expenses? Are there perhaps any demo projects or articles out there about designing of low-budget optical fiber systems? I am aware that optical emitters represent a major cost as well, so I was wondering where may I find any comparisons on price/performance ratio?

I know that a company named Darma has managed to build a similar system according to the photos here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sncu1b7c2lknc0u/AABfOkkTa3hHn6IlD_gg1fqZa?dl=0 , so I am really curious what components did they use.

I doubt that the mircocontroller will be your problem - even the most powerful micros aren't that expensive. Surely a system like this would need precision optics and maybe precision analogue signal processing, etc?
I can't even begin to imagine how this would be done - do you have any more information on what techniques are used? Is it something to do with measuring stretch in the fiber, or a change is its transmission characteristics as it is bent?
Sounds fascinating.... but hard!

not sure how you use fiber to measure those things, or if you are just using fiber for the data relay,

but for data communication:
garbage stereos/tv's/amps may have salvage parts you need, all you really need is the emitter/decoder, these examples may only have 1 way light beam,

Googled this - "optical fiber as sensors for measurement strain" yesterday and happened upon this: **broken link removed**.

Sort of a standing wave concept. Sort of. Reflectometry more accurately.

Anyway, it's the use of fibre optics in a very clever fashion and over remarkable distances if need be (>100km) to measure strain, temp, etc..

Knowing no more than I do, it strikes me that it is a system that makes use of very inexpensive sensors (the fibre optics, often those already in place for data transmission) but to detect the signals generated takes some very expensive hardware and software arrangements (often proprietary) to make sense of them.

And if desired, dedicated optics utilizing Fiber Bragg Grating increase the sensitivity and reduce the effect of electrical noise to zero.

Thanks for the research Bob - I should have done the same myself rather than just indulging in conjecture (although do like conjecture).
That looks like mighty impressive stuff (not read it all yet)!

Victus, is this the kind of system you had in mind?