Current Developments and Trends in Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors
A Special Issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220) belonging to the section "Optical Sensors".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2027 | Viewed by 32
Editors
Interests: optical communication; optical sensing; fiber module; optical measurement; silicon photonics
Interests: optical communications; optical sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Distributed optical fiber sensors have become an important enabling technology for continuous and real-time monitoring over long distances. In comparison with conventional point sensors, they offer distinctive advantages in large-scale coverage, electromagnetic immunity, compact size, and suitability for harsh or difficult-to-access environments. These features have made distributed fiber sensing increasingly relevant to civil infrastructure, transportation systems, energy facilities, industrial plants, and environmental monitoring. In recent years, notable progress has been made in sensing approaches based on Rayleigh, Raman, and Brillouin scattering, together with improvements in optical components, system architectures, signal demodulation, and data analysis. As a result, distributed optical fiber sensing is moving steadily from laboratory research toward wider engineering use.
This Special Issue aims to present recent advances in the science, technology, and practical implementation of distributed optical fiber sensors. Particular emphasis will be placed on work related to infrastructure monitoring, including structural health monitoring and diagnostics in real operating environments. Contributions on Rayleigh-, Raman-, and Brillouin-based distributed sensing techniques are especially welcome, as are studies addressing system performance, sensing reliability, spatial resolution, long-range operation, and field validation. We also encourage submissions that explore the integration of distributed fiber sensing with optical communication systems, integrated communication and sensing, and power-over-fiber techniques, since such approaches are becoming increasingly relevant to smart monitoring and distributed system deployment. Papers involving hybrid sensing architectures, intelligent data processing, and practical sensing platforms for engineering applications are also within the scope of this Special Issue.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Distributed optical fiber sensing based on Rayleigh, Raman, and Brillouin scattering;
- Distributed optical fiber sensing for structural health monitoring and infrastructure diagnostics;
- Integrated optical communication and distributed fiber sensing systems;
- Hybrid configurations combining distributed and point optical fiber sensors;
- Intelligent monitoring systems using fiber sensing with AI or IoT;
- Field trials and practical engineering applications of distributed optical fiber sensors.
Dr. Shien-Kuei Liaw
Dr. Jiun-Yu Sung
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- distributed optical fiber sensors
- structural health monitoring
- Rayleigh scattering
- Brillouin scattering
- infrastructure monitoring
- integrated communication and sensing
- optical fiber sensing
- intelligent monitoring systems
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