Fiber sensing

Fiber sensing in research

Fiber sensing turns ordinary optical cables into long chains of sensors, letting researchers monitor vibration, temperature, and strain over large distances without installing separate instruments everywhere.

At sea

Subsea telecom cables are used to detect earthquakes and submarine landslides, monitor ocean currents, waves, and internal tides, track marine life (e.g., whale calls), study icebergs and sea ice movement, support tsunami warning systems, and even help locate illegal fishing vessels or anchor drags, reaching remote ocean areas that traditional sensors rarely cover.

Pilot project:

Submarine cables for marine biology

stockbeeld zeekabels op de bodem van de oceaan — With fiber sensing, even a hard-to-reach place such as the ocean floor becomes a valuable source of measurement data.

On land

Terrestrial fiber networks support seismic and microseismic monitoring, traffic and pedestrian flow analysis, railway and road condition monitoring, groundwater and glacier studies, and detection of landslides or sinkholes. DTS and DTSS are also used to study temperature change in ecosystems, and structural health of bridges, tunnels, and dams.

Pilot project: