Photonic technologies have played a key role in the last decades to
address the high demand for data traffic by telecommunication networks and data
centres. The industrial development of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
optical communications systems and networks in the nineties and the more recent
interest in photonic integration for data centres to overcome their well-known
electronic bottleneck, have driven the technology to a high level of maturity,
opening the way to many other industrial fields and applications. In
particular, photonic technologies are becoming extremely attractive for sensing
applications in a wide range of industrial fields, including energy, oil &
gas, transportation, automotive, aerospace, bio-chemical and medical
applications, as well as for structural health and environmental monitoring.
Optical fibre sensors and photonic sensors, in general, offer many advantages
compared to conventional electronic-based sensors; immunity to electromagnetic
interference, small size and weight, high multiplexing capabilities, robustness
to harsh environments, as well as the fact of being completely passive at the
sensing points.