A system for determining the stroke of a hydraulic cylinder is provided. The hydraulic cylinder includes a barrel with a rod that slidably extends therefrom. A fiber optic shape sensing system is positioned to determine the stroke of the rod relative to the barrel. An interrogation module is fixed to a reference frame. A fiber bundle is joined to the interrogation module at a proximal end and a fiber termination at a distal end, which is joined to the connecting end of the rod. A signal conditioning module connected to the interrogation module is configured to compute the location of at least one position of the fiber bundle relative to the reference frame; and provide an output indicative of the stroke of the connecting end relative to the barrel.