D-Light project

Transforming optical fibres into dense sensor networks for environmental monitoring of terrestrial and marine areas

Impact

The D-Light project aims to exploit and combine the different measurement capabilities of optical fibres to make significant progress in in-situ environmental instrumentation. The effects of stress and temperature influence the propagation of the light signal in an optical fibre. It is now possible to detect any such disturbances and transform optical fibre cables into dense sensor networks. The project's researchers will work on in-situ monitoring of underground, underwater and urban environments to image the invisible and get as close as possible to processes to characterise them on a wide range of scales. 

The project's technological developments will facilitate the monitoring of environments that are difficult to access through the use of reliable, high-resolution measurements which will be a key asset in quantifying certain effects linked to climate change and/or anthropogenic pressures and also in preventing certain natural hazards. Another aim for the project is to provide practical solutions that could impact fields as varied as geothermal energy, water resource management and protection, and infrastructure monitoring, thereby creating innovation and technology transfer opportunities.

Limitations to overcome

The first obstacle involves how the association between the fibre optic cables and the medium affects the quality of the measurements. Another challenge is to establish a synergy between different fibre optic measurement techniques to go further than the current state of the art. The overall aim is to propose new observation systems that generate data that are unique in terms of their multi-physical nature, accuracy, spatial coverage and spatial and temporal resolution.

Risks

The main risks of the project are linked to the implementation of new experimental protocols, particularly for complex underground and marine environments, and to the development and implementation of the right approaches for high spatial resolution fibre optic measurements. The high cost of certain ways of working in the field or at sea could however limit the scale of certain experiments and applications.

Innovation potential

The D-Light project will explore the use of low-cost fibre-optic cables for monitoring subsoil and infrastructure, or of existing telecoms cables that are already widely used to pave the way for numerous applications in the fields of smart cities, geotechnical and environmental monitoring, and maritime surveillance. D-Light will provide high-resolution data in under-sampled marine and subsurface domains to enable the rapid and low-cost development of multidisciplinary and operational observatories like groundwater monitoring or early warning for natural hazards, including in locations currently usually considered difficult to instrument.