Advances in Fiber Optic Sensing for Large-scale Structural Health Monitoring

Safety monitoring of large-scale infrastructure and industrial structures is critical to ensuring public safety and asset integrity. Distributed fiber optic sensing technology, with its advantages of long-distance coverage, high precision, and immunity to electromagnetic interference, has become the mainstream solution in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM).

Brillouin scattering-based distributed strain and temperature sensing (BOTDA/BOTDR) enables continuous measurement over tens of kilometers on a single fiber with centimeter-level spatial resolution. This makes it ideal for comprehensive monitoring of linear infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels, and dams.

Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG)-based quasi-distributed sensing solutions are widely used for multi-point precision measurements, such as in wind turbine blades and aerospace structures. New-generation FBG interrogators now support sampling rates of several kilohertz, enabling the capture of transient strain responses under dynamic loading.

Precision improvements from coherent detection technology and advanced signal processing algorithms have elevated distributed fiber optic strain measurement to the microstrain level, achieving a temperature resolution of 0.01°C. Integrated with machine learning, these systems can automatically detect structural damage patterns and estimate remaining service life.

NeuronTech delivers end-to-end structural health monitoring solutions—from fiber optic sensor selection and deployment design to data acquisition and analysis—supporting major bridge and wind power projects.