Beyond Telecom: Illuminating Opportunities in Network-Scale Fiber Sensing

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Moscone Center

Fiber sensing has emerged as a new “hot” topic at OFC in the last few years. The main driving force behind this is the advent of quantitative photonic sensing technology coupled with the drive to re-use the deployed fiber infrastructure and potentially the transmission systems to address a variety of applied and basic science challenges. These challenges range from terrestrial and subsea cable protection to structural health and infrastructure monitoring, seismic imaging of volcanoes and oceans, and early earthquake and tsunami warnings. Recent applications have shown the significant impact that fiber sensing systems have across science and engineering domains, which has recently been cited by the National Science Foundation, the European Union, and several other industry and government agencies. 

Despite its growing importance, fiber sensing remains somewhat isolated as a research field, with limited interaction between the telecom and sensing communities. This separation hinders the exchange of knowledge and techniques, often resulting in the parallel development of similar solutions to shared problems, which in turn slows the advancement of novel fiber sensing technologies. The knowledge gap between these communities also impedes potential collaborations that could accelerate the growth of the sensing field. 

The purpose of this panel is to showcase state-of-the-art sensing applications that could benefit tremendously from large-scale access to the fiber grid. Our goal is to highlight key research achievements that, while outside the traditional telecom domain, have the potential to significantly impact telecom networks besides science needs. By fostering dialogue between the telecom and sensing communities, this forum aims to provide guidelines and requirements from a telecom perspective, minimizing the risks associated with conducting sensing experiments over live networks, and ultimately advancing both fields.

Organizers

Panelists