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A Silicon-tipped Fiber-optic Sensing Platform with High Resolution and Fast Response
Published on: January 7, 2019
Review of Optical Fiber and Integrated Photonic Sensors for Industry and Smart Manufacturing: Technologies,
Giannis Poulopoulos1, Hercules Avramopoulos1
1Photonics Communications Research Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Polytechniou Street, Zografou, 15773 Athens, Greece.
Abstract:
Smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0, and cyber-physical systems (CPSs) require sensing architectures capable of resolving both spatially distributed asset behavior and highly localized process states. This review examines optical fiber sensors (OFSs) and integrated photonic sensors for industrial monitoring through a deployment-oriented, multi-scale perspective. The discussion covers five major application regimes: continuous infrastructure surveillance, structural health monitoring (SHM) of load-bearing composites, dynamic condition monitoring of machinery, in situ observability in advanced manufacturing, and localized chemical or gas sensing. Extended fiber-optic networks, including distributed fiber-optic sensing (DFOS) based on Rayleigh, Raman, and Brillouin scattering, together with multiplexed fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, provide passive, embeddable, and remotely interrogated monitoring for large-scale assets and harsh environments. Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) shift transduction to compact node-level devices for localized thermal, mechanical, refractive-index, absorption, vibration, and inertial measurements, while plasmonic and dielectric nanophotonic sensors extend optical monitoring toward surface-selective and chemically specific detection. Across these platforms, digital signal processing (DSP), machine learning (ML), sensor fusion, and digital-twin (DT) coupling are treated as artificial-intelligence-enabled (AI-enabled) layers for signal recovery, inverse mapping, uncertainty reduction, and predictive maintenance. The review argues that scalable industrial adoption is less limited by sensing physics than by the complete deployment chain: packaging, fiber-chip interfacing, calibration stability, interrogation robustness, and AI-enabled data interpretation. This manuscript is structured as a deployment-oriented narrative review of optical fiber and integrated photonic sensors for industrial monitoring and smart manufacturing.

