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PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Sens.
Sec. Optoelectronic and Photonic Sensors
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsens.2025.1546392
This article is part of the Research Topic Thought Leaders in Sensor Research: Volume 2 View all 3 articles
Distributed optical fiber sensors: what is known and what is to come
Provisionally accepted- Institute of Electrical and Micro Engineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
This perspective article delves into the current performance limitations of distributed optical fiber sensors and proposes avenues for future advancements, as envisioned by the author, whose fourdecade-long career has been dedicated to this transformative field.By upscaling the dimension of collected data, distributed sensors are essential in enabling large-scale data acquisition for "big data" systems, and optical fibers offer a unique, highly effective platform for distributed sensing. This article examines the ultimate performance achievable using state-of-the-art technologies across different sensor types. It further explores potential innovations, such as the adoption of advanced signal processing, novel fiber designs, and artificial intelligence, that could drive significant improvements in sensing performance and applications.
Keywords: optical fiber sensor, Distributed fiber sensor, Distributed temperature sensing, Rayleigh scattering, Brillouin scattering, Raman Scattering
Received: 16 Dec 2024; Accepted: 25 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Thévenaz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Luc Thévenaz, Institute of Electrical and Micro Engineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
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