Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SoFiN (Software enabled Fiber optic multisensing Network)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2024-06-01 do 2025-11-30
The infrastructure for fibre optic sensors has expanded extensively, with a great potential for more efficiently conducting sensing tasks but also carrying data in parallel. However, their use for sensing is very limited due to a lack of supporting technologies. The EU-funded SoFiN project will address current challenges and carry out research to utilise fibre optic sensors for sensing systems, providing great benefits throughout the already installed and extensive fibre infrastructure. To achieve this, the project team will develop an innovative sensor platform along with novel laser types and processing units, all connected to a centralized software monitoring platform, employing intelligent technologies to be newly developed as part of this research project.
The project is based on three key strategic objectives. First is the development of an adaptive, modular and highly integrated photonic multi-sensing system, capable for various sensing applications in a sensor network. This involves the technical design and further development of the flexible sensor platform that can be used for various fiber-based sensing applications. Second the parallel research and development of new types of digital signal processing and cloud connections of the sensor system. In brief this involves the novel signal processing concepts to improve sensing performance and integration of the sensor system into a cloud-based monitoring system. The third objective involves the validation and demonstration of the project developments under the context of end-user needs. For this objective, the system will be used in three typical application use cases to further study behaviour close to real world scenarios.
The uses cases included in the project are: 1) Supervision of powerlines where distributed temperature and acoustic sensing will be used to collect information on the status of powerlines. Also, it is planned to interrogate FBG (Fiber Bragg Grating) arrays to further demonstrate and validate the flexibility of the system. 2) Supervision of telecommunication where information will be collected from the system, on external impacts threatening the fiber infrastructure, e.g. fire, stress, heavy machinery in the perimeter of fiber cables that could risk fiber integrity. Investigations will be also performed to increase security of unmanned network sites. 3) Supervision of water supply network where distributed acoustic sensing will be used to detect leaks via changing sound generated by water flow, but also FBG array-based supervision to detect temperature and strain variation caused by lost water combined with methods of machine learning to detect water loss at an early stage.
The project is based on three key strategic objectives. First is the development of an adaptive, modular and highly integrated photonic multi-sensing system, capable for various sensing applications in a sensor network. This involves the technical design and further development of the flexible sensor platform that can be used for various fiber-based sensing applications. Second the parallel research and development of new types of digital signal processing and cloud connections of the sensor system. In brief this involves the novel signal processing concepts to improve sensing performance and integration of the sensor system into a cloud-based monitoring system. The third objective involves the validation and demonstration of the project developments under the context of end-user needs. For this objective, the system will be used in three typical application use cases to further study behaviour close to real world scenarios.
The uses cases included in the project are: 1) Supervision of powerlines where distributed temperature and acoustic sensing will be used to collect information on the status of powerlines. Also, it is planned to interrogate FBG (Fiber Bragg Grating) arrays to further demonstrate and validate the flexibility of the system. 2) Supervision of telecommunication where information will be collected from the system, on external impacts threatening the fiber infrastructure, e.g. fire, stress, heavy machinery in the perimeter of fiber cables that could risk fiber integrity. Investigations will be also performed to increase security of unmanned network sites. 3) Supervision of water supply network where distributed acoustic sensing will be used to detect leaks via changing sound generated by water flow, but also FBG array-based supervision to detect temperature and strain variation caused by lost water combined with methods of machine learning to detect water loss at an early stage.
The flexible multisensing platform is already developed, tested and ready to be validated in various fiber-based sensing applications. The first validation for the telecom use case was also recently initiated with successful results. Both hardware and software components of the project have been completed within the period and connected into one full system platform. WP2 for the new laser developments was completed in RP2 with some challenges which have been addressed accordingly to avoid any impact on parallel tasks. Additional time was required for developments and tests with certain targets met and some more advanced targets proven not feasible. In this regard, an earlier version of the new laser was used for integrations in the newly developed interrogator platform which was successfully tested in lab and further validated in a first round of validation tests performed in real environment. As part of WP3 the complete hardware interrogator platform was successfully developed, tested and further connected to all parallel developments of the project. Within WP4 the various sensing elements have been tested and in WP5 the software components have been developed, tested and all connected together to form the full multisensing system. These include the Cloud platform, the initial ML algorithms and the Digital Twin working seamlessly in connection with the hardware interrogator platform. The whole system was first tested in lab as part of WP6 and further validated with a first round of validation runs performed for the telecom use case. Within the upcoming months it is planned to continue with the telecom validations, further fine tune the system, enhance the ML algorithms and later continue with the next use cases to also test the system in powerline and water pipeline infrastructures.
The project has overall progressed well and according to expectations in line with DoA. In terms of delivering the needful impact, the project has already accomplished important results already published and communicated at invited talks in European and International conferences. All publications are indicated under the relevant section of this platform for further reference on detailed scientific results achieved. In total 11 scientific publications and presentations at conferences have been accomplished. This in turn shows that all so far progress combined together aims at strengthening even more the impact of this project, and importantly, the impact in scientific, economic and industrial production or processes. The project developments have already been tested in lab environment and currently progressing through real use cases validations. The successful overall validations will provide a solid proof of the SoFiN concept and hence, indirectly also show its promising potential to deliver the expected impact in structural health monitoring.