Tag: distributed sensors

Distributed Sensing market and its growth forecast

According to the researchers, the distributed sensing market is predicted to reach more than $891 million by 2026. The distributed temperature sensing power cables and distributed acoustic sensing systems, as well as global environmental changes, are expected to increase the demand significantly. The modern advancements and developments connected with the light-sized fiber optic systems stimulate globally the distributed sensing market. Moreover, the growth of the distributed sensing market can also be explained by the government’s support for distributed temperature sensing technology.

Nowadays, there are many appliances of distributed sensing systems. There is an extensive need for monitoring continuous temperature changes within big territories and long distances, for example, in the oil sphere. The distributed temperature sensing systems are also applied in subsea areas. Distributed sensing can also help in providing security and productivity in different market sectors in the upcoming years. Moreover, fiber optic solutions are more often applied in fire detection processes.

In April the newly developed fiber optic system got a reward for the innovative approach and commercialization. The fiber optic system expands the coverage of distributed sensors. As a result, this innovation gives new possibilities in many fields such as energy, infrastructure, and environmental sectors. This fiber optic technology allows the collection of more precise data. That could lead to the improvement of sustainability, enhancing operational safety, and getting optimal costs for existing and new applications.

Distributed fiber optic sensors offer sensitivity 100 times greater than the usual ones. The higher sensitivity solves the emerging critical problem and challenges fast. That allows monitoring the situation continuously. This fiber optic technology also provides all the advantages such as carbon capture, improved geothermal systems, and dam integrity monitoring as well as subsea oil and gas wells.

In conclusion, distributed sensing systems are a very promising technology for many sectors. Thanks to the distributed sensors that are extremely sensitive to any slight changes, they can provide the most precise picture in comparison with other modern technologies.

Optromix is a fast-growing vendor of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) product line such as fiber Bragg grating sensors, for example, FBG strain sensors, FBG interrogators and multiplexers, Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) systems, Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) systems. The company creates and supplies a broad variety of fiber optic solutions for monitoring worldwide. If you are interested in structural health monitoring systems and want to learn more, please contact us at info@optromix.com

Totally new application of DAS systems

The red palm weevil is regarded as a serious problem for the cultivation of date palms leading to massive economic losses worldwide. Although curative techniques are not challenging, early detection is still difficult to be performed. Fiber optic technology allows overcoming the threat and offers reliable detection of RPW by a distributed acoustic sensor (DAS).

Modern DAS systems enable to detect feeding sound created by larvae as young as 12 days, in an infected tree. Compared to traditional methods, the DAS technique provides a cost-effective and non-invasive alternative that can perform 24-7, real-time monitoring of 1,000 palm trees, or even more. Moreover, distributed sensors allow controlling temperature, a crucial characteristic to monitor farm fires, one more important problem for the cultivation of palm trees around the world.

Nowadays there are various techniques to detect the weevils. For example, it is possible to use trained dogs to smell the odor, however, such sensing is not precise and has low efficiency. That is why distributed acoustic sensors are considered to be the most promising early detection techniques. Current sensing technologies use sound probes to install them right into the tree trunk but such acoustic sensors damage plants and create a nest for other insects.

The novel distributed acoustic sensor combined with a signal processing algorithm offer a reliable solution for the early detection of red palm weevils. The design of the DAS system is based on the use of the laser and photodetector installed within a single unit, while only the optical fiber is wound around the palm trees to create an optical network. The developed DAS technique has been already tested on two palm trees (one healthy and one infested with ~12 days old larvae.).

The thing is that the novel distributed acoustic sensors are “uniquely non-invasive, providing 24-7 monitoring, at relatively low cost, and offering wide coverage of the farming area, using only a single fiber optic cable.”

To be more precise, all the optical/electronic components applied to design acoustic sensors are put into a sensing unit, which is linked to an optical fiber that is extended throughout the palm-trees farm. Herewith, the fiber circles each tree trunk, from the ground up to a ~1 m height because the probability of RPW is extremely high there. Also, the fiber optic cable between trees can be either put on the ground buried in the soil providing real-time monitoring that promotes precise identification of locations of the infected and healthy trees.

The design of DAS systems includes the use of phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR) that has numerous potential applications in the oil and gas industries as well as for real-time structural health monitoring. The operating principle of distributed acoustic sensors is based on “launching a train of optical pulses generated by a narrow linewidth laser into a single-mode fiber.”

Optromix is a DAS system manufacturer that provides top of the line distributed acoustic sensing systems suitable for monitoring of commerce networks. If you have any questions or would like to buy a DAS system, please contact us at info@optromix.com

DAS system distributed sensors FBG acoustic sensors

The noise of Distributed Acoustic Sensing is suppressed

A technique of noise suppression used f-x deconvolution and the wavelet transform allows reducing jump edges in the phase noise of distributed acoustic sensing. The DAS system has been already tested and demonstrated great results of high performance in terms of increasing the quality level of seismic waves. Distributed acoustic sensing provides relatively stable phase sensitivity as well as better the signal-to-noise ratio, leading to more remarkable features of seismic wave signals.

To be more precise, distributed fiber optic sensing based on Rayleigh scattering is not new and used in various applications to control current assets and employ new resources. It is possible to apply such DAS systems to provide efficient and comparatively inexpensive development of perimeter security systems and produce defensive redundancy.

Different methods have been used to apply Rayleigh scattering in the development of distributed fiber optic sensors. For instance, a distributed sensing technology of optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR) was used for the first time over three decades ago. Nowadays a noise suppression technique based on f-x deconvolution and the wavelet transform is considered to be the most efficient for distributed acoustic sensors.

The thing is that f-x deconvolution is regarded as a traditional technique of seismic data processing. The application includes the treatment of seismic signals by fiber optic sensors as a two-dimensional (2D) image in terms of time and channel. The DAS system enables us to extract the signal characteristics of each channel with a comparatively stable noise distribution between channels.

Usually, such techniques as deconvolution or the wavelet transform are applied separately in traditional seismic noise processing but here these techniques are combined in distributed sensing technology to minimize the number of wavelets transform layers and reach effective low-frequency noise suppression. The DAS system offers such benefits as comparatively stable phase sensitivity over the whole sensing range, the reduction of jump edges in phase noise, and more evident features of seismic wave signals.

The operating principle of distributed acoustic sensing used f-x deconvolution is based on “the assumption that desired signals are continuous and predictable whereas random noise is incoherent and unpredictable.” DAS sensors are actively used for oil and gas exploration. Thus, the noise compression technique improves the phase noise performance of the DAS system. Moreover, the jump edges from the noise of fiber optic sensors are reduced with the same peaks and valleys compared to the original signals which play a crucial role in calculating the time delay of peaks and valleys between various channels.

DAS system distributed sensors FBG acoustic sensors