Nowadays, in the field of our research on grating array fiber optic sensing networks and their intelligent applications, we have independent intellectual property rights and complete autonomy and controllability in terms of preparation methods, processes, and equipment.
After hundreds of days and nights of research and development, our team has been the first in the country to develop a fiber optic grating temperature sensing fire alarm technology and system with independent intellectual property rights, which has been put into use in the national oil depot project. Our team actively promotes the standardization and industrialization of fiber optic sensing technology, and has facilitated the development and promulgation of the first national standard in the field of fiber optic sensing. Our team has developed more than 30 types of fiber optic sensors in seven categories, forming a complete set of fiber optic sensing production technology and equipment with completely independent intellectual property rights in China, breaking the monopoly of imported products in fields such as highway tunnels and greatly reducing construction costs.
Outlook: What technical challenges has your team overcome in the development of fiber optic sensing technology?
Jiang Desheng: Based on the development needs and key issues of fiber optic grating sensing technology, we have conducted extensive research and successfully overcome two major bottlenecks in the engineering application of fiber optic grating sensing technology: the development of encoded fiber optic gratings, which solves the problem that ordinary fiber optic gratings cannot achieve large capacity multi-point distributed detection; Invented the method of angle tuning wavelength demodulation and achieved independent innovation in fiber Bragg grating demodulation technology. These innovative technologies have independent intellectual property rights and occupy an important position internationally.
Our team has expanded our service scope to all aspects of economic development, promoting the transformation and upgrading of more industries. For example, in 2006, the fire alarm project of Zhongnan Mountain Tunnel in Qinling Mountains, Shaanxi Province was tendered internationally. A well-known foreign fiber optic sensing enterprise participated in the competition and provided a solution that not only required a large amount of post maintenance, but also required several minutes for alarm time. And our fire alarm device solves the world problem of 20 kilometers long distance without relay, with an alarm response time of less than 20 seconds and a construction cost per kilometer only one-third of foreign products. Finally, we won the bid with technology as the top priority. Subsequently, similar foreign products gradually withdrew from the Chinese market. As of now, the grating fire alarm system has been equipped with fire safety monitoring for 20000 kilometers of tunnels and 90% of oil depots in China, providing guarantees for national security and people's lives.
In recent years, in response to the new demand for fiber optic sensing networks in the strategy of building a strong transportation country, we have actively carried out core technology research and development of a new generation of high-capacity fiber optic sensing networks, achieving world leading innovative results. For the first time internationally, we have industrialized the production of products with over 100000 grating sensors per fiber, forming a high-capacity, high-density, and high-precision grating array fiber optic sensing network system. This technology has been demonstrated and applied in multiple national strategic tasks and major projects such as airport intelligent runways, smart subways, and smart highways, providing key intelligent platforms and core data support for high-quality development in multiple industries, and has received high praise from the industry and relevant departments.
Accelerate the development of fiber optic sensing industry
Outlook: What are the bottlenecks in the research and development of core technologies for fiber optic sensing networks? How do you view these challenges?
Jiang Desheng: In the past decade, we have solved the problem of the sensor end in fiber optic sensing networks, and in the next decade, we will solve the problem of the demodulator end. The demonstration application of fiber optic sensing networks in various industries has shown great market prospects. However, the signal demodulation instruments of existing fiber optic sensing networks are composed of many discrete high-end optical and electrical chips and devices. As the coverage area of the sensing network increases, the space required for the demodulator becomes larger. In the demonstration project of the fiber optic sensing network's all time and all domain intelligent high-speed, we need to build a dedicated computer room to accommodate the demodulator. In addition, cost constraints have limited large-scale applications. For example, our fiber optic sensing network bridge health monitoring system has received high attention and praise from the industry. However, based on the current price level of modems and the scale of existing bridges, even if only one demodulator is used for each bridge, the total cost will exceed 100 billion yuan. Therefore, there is an urgent need to achieve high integration and low cost of fiber optic sensing demodulation instruments through chip based research on fiber optic sensing.
Outlook: How to accelerate the technological and industrial development of demodulator terminals?
Jiang Desheng: There are still many bottleneck problems in the key technologies of high-end optical and electrical chips and devices in the demodulator. High end optical and electrical chips and devices rely on imports, with low localization rates and are monopolized by foreign suppliers. In the increasingly complex international relations, the situation for achieving breakthroughs in the research and development of next-generation demodulation instruments is severe. At the same time, for sensing in special application scenarios such as aerospace and deep sea, although the market size is not large, it is a major strategic deployment area of the country. It not only requires miniaturization, low weight, and high reliability of the sensing system, but also puts forward high requirements for the localization and safety of software and hardware. The traditional system integration method using discrete components is no longer able to meet the needs.
At present, there is a lack of a complete system and overall coordination of optical and electrical chips and devices suitable for large-scale fiber optic sensing networks both domestically and internationally. Therefore, developing optical and electrical chips and devices for fiber optic sensing, and changing the traditional mode of building fiber optic sensing demodulation instruments with discrete chips and devices, is an urgent need for intelligent upgrading in many industry fields, and is also an effective path to achieve leapfrog development by opening up new tracks.
In the current era of rapid development of intelligent Internet of Things, it is recommended to accelerate the deployment of key technologies and the construction of upstream and downstream industrial chains in the new generation of intelligent sensing networks, forming a complete set of production technologies and equipment with independent intellectual property rights in China, and forming a pattern dominated by fiber optic communication, fiber optic sensing, and optical device industries, with the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence competing for development.
In the fiber optic production workshop of Changfei Fiber Optic Cable Co., Ltd. located in Wuhan, Hubei Province, staff are conducting fiber optic testing (data photo). Photo by Xiao Yijiu/This magazine
Improve technical standards and safety regulations
Outlook: What suggestions do you have for developing and improving relevant technical standards and safety regulations?
Jiang Desheng: For nearly 40 years, my team and I have actively promoted the standardization and industrialization of fiber optic sensing technology. Nowadays, in various fields of engineering and structural health and safety monitoring, there are increasingly high requirements for monitoring accuracy, coverage range, spatial resolution, intelligent data acquisition and other indicators of temperature, strain, micro vibration and other signals. With the continuous development and improvement of fiber optic sensing technology, further formulation and improvement of relevant technical standards and safety regulations are important measures to ensure the reliability and safety of fiber optic sensing systems.
In terms of technical standards, it is necessary to further establish and improve relevant application guidelines, with a focus on major projects, network security, physical protection, and security training and awareness enhancement. Regularly evaluate the implementation effectiveness of safety regulations for fiber optic sensing systems, continuously improve and perfect safety regulations based on evaluation results and new safety risk situations, further enhance the reliability and safety of fiber optic sensing systems, and provide better services for various industries.
