Smart LightwAve Multi-modal Distributed Acoustic Strain and Temperature sensor (SLAM-DAST)

Project Information

SLAM-DAST

Grant agreement ID: 971149

DOI

10.3030/971149

Project closed

EC signature date 3 March 2021

Start date 1 April 2021

End date 30 June 2024

Funded under

• Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

Total cost

€ 3 414 905,35

EU contribution

€ 2 751 596,25

Coordinated by

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SLAM-DAST (Smart LightwAve Multi-modal Distributed Acoustic Strain and Temperature sensor (SLAM-DAST))

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This project transversally targets a huge variety of consumer and industrial sensing applications though a distributed sensing technology that can become a widespread nerve system in smart city environments, smart home/household monitoring and utility and services distribution.

SLAM-DAST goal is to develop, prototype and demonstrate, both in civil/industrial and especially in household/smart-city case studies, a new, cost-effective, Smart LightwAve Multi-modal Distributed Acoustic Strain and Temperature photonic sensing system (SLAM-DAST), which will integrate: - Distributed Temperature and mechanical deformation (Strain) Sensing (DTSS) and - Distributed Acoustic vibrations optical Sensing (DAS).

Adding sensors makes “smart” homes, household and infrastructures supporting the everyday life of millions of consumers (power, water, gas, transportation, urban) and brings new advantages by optimizing the usage of the resources, reducing wastes, preventing accidents, improving health, reducing social costs and saving on maintenance and repair.

Conventional electronic sensors have open issues (i.e. installation costs & time, power supply, communication range, reliability, durability, …) that at present prevent a quick diffusion of the “smart” home & city concepts. This project solves the open issues by delivering the product SLaM-DAST, a new disruptive interrogator equipment that can turn existing optical fibre networks into millions of sensors for SOUNDS, TEMPERATURE and DEFORMATION and fill a larger gap towards the mass-adoption of smart cities and smart infrastructures.

In addition, SLaM-DAST solves the open issues of many “smart infrastructure” applications:
- any optical fibre immediately becomes an array of thousands costless passive sensor (no power supply);
- allows urban range coverage (10-100km range) and meter-level granularity (1-10m resolution);
- is intrinsically safe & explosion proof (no sparks or overheat even if damaged);
- is immune from interferences, high voltage, strong magnetic fields & lightening;
- ensures long-term durability because the fibre is extremely resistant to corrosion, water, moisture & chemicals.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first and second project periods, the technical activities have been were focused mainly in the development of integrated sensor equipment and the related IT hardware and software, while the management, dissemination and exploitation activities have been focused on the project start-up and monitoring (agreements, kick-off meeting etc.), in the creation and update of project website, in the creation and update of market uptake support web platform, in carrying out the exploitation an dissemination plan, in promotion activities and in involvement of external exploitation partners as expected by the description of actions. Some demo trial have also been carried out on second reporting period, and elaboration of standardization guidelines has also been acheived.
During the third project period, the technical activities have been were focused mainly in the finalization of the industrial prototype for integrated sensor equipment and the related IT hardware and software, while the management, dissemination and exploitation have been focused on the project ongoing monitoring and steering activities (organizing technical and non-technical meetings, writing reports etc.), in the maintenance/update of official project website and of the market uptake support web platform, in updating the exploitation an dissemination plan, in promotion activities, in presenting project results to events and conference and in involvement of external exploitation partners as expected by the description of actions.

Regarding the Product Industrialization, during the final reporting period the following main results have been achieved:
The Work Package 3 has been successfully completed, and in detail:
• The demostrator has been completed;
• The industrial manufacturing process for the final DAST product has been designed, tested and troubleshooted;
• The industrial reproducibility and scale-up capability has been studied and assessed;
• The first production batch has been released according with the plans.
The system is to be considered ready for industrial production.

In addition to technical objectives, also in third reporting period (RP3) the project consortium has achieved following results in exploitation and dissemination:
• continued attendance and project promotion at a number of exhibitions and conferences;
• continued roadshows to stakeholders and potential customers;
• detailed market analysis, roadshow and specific meetings for exploring the exploitation possibilities;
• promotion of the project and inclusion of new External Exploitation Partners.
• content update with news, published papers, and events, for the project website with a public area for information and dissemination and private area for project management and communication
• Organization of final workshop at Smart Cities Stockholm 2024.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS) are a pervasive lightwave technology that enables measurements of physical (as well as chemical) environmental parameters such as temperature, deformation (strain), pressure and sound (acoustic vibrations) along optical fibers for attaining a “virtual sensor” with thousands of different sensing points.

DOFS, in particular those related to temperature, strain and vibrations, have an extremely large number of applications in households, smart cities, industrial and civil structures simply using one or more sensing fibre cables installed along the assets/homes to be monitored and an interrogator equipment to detect and measure temperature, strain and vibrations individually at any cable point.

SLaM-DAST technical objectives are to optimize, industrialize and deliver true multi-modal fibre sensing by integrating two different technologies in the same equipment, i.e. Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) exploiting Rayleigh scattering together with Distributed Strain and Temperature Sensing (DSTS) exploiting optical Brillouin scattering. This project can then transversally target a large variety of consumer and industrial sensing applications though a distributed sensing technology that can become a widespread nerve system in smart city environments, smart homes/household monitoring and utility and services distribution, trying to fill the gap towards the mass-adoption of smart cities and smart infrastructures.

SLaM-DAST is based on a technology that combines Brillouin analysis and phase-Sensitive reflectometry to create a “sensor” made of light pulses that travels along a fibre and reads it individually at any point, bringing a novel unique value proposition:
- distributed sensing: any point of multi-km cables becomes an independent sensor;
- works on standard telecom fibres, i.e. already installed in urban networks, cutting installation cost and time;
- multi-modal sensing: measures multiple physical parameters (heat, strain, sounds) higher flexibility, wider application range, more reliable anomaly detection using a cross-correlation between different parameters.

SLaM-DAST market exploitation will fully cover the segmentation of the target market both geographically and by user application thanks to the new value proposition, a co-selling synergy approach, and a captive market take-off, thanks to a highly skill and complementary consortium of industrial and academic partners.

SLAM-DAST sensor scheme and set of applications