Sentea unveils the world’s first FBG fiber sensor Interrogator-on-Chip with integrated light source

GHENT (Belgium), September 23, 2024 — Sentea, a leading innovator in advanced optical fiber sensing solutions, has announced a breakthrough in the development of a single-chip Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) read-out system. The chip, based on silicon photonics technology, is the first of its kind to include an integrated light source. This breakthrough enables unprecedented sensing accuracy in a compact and cost-effective package, making FBG sensing more accessible and suitable for high-volume applications in a wide range of industries, including structural health monitoring, industrial automation, energy and automotive sectors.

FBG fiber sensing is renowned for its precision and robustness in measuring parameters such as temperature, strain, and loads under harsh conditions. Despite the growing demand for accurate, real-time monitoring in many industries, the bulky and expensive nature of traditional optical readout systems has been a major barrier to broad adoption. The reliance on bulk optics has made these systems difficult to scale for large-volume applications. Sentea is already offering highly sensitive, robust and scalable read-out devices by using its unique silicon chip platform, and now elevates its fiber sensing technology further by integrating the light source on the silicon chip. This breakthrough allows for a single packaging step and significantly reduces the cost and size of read-out systems.

This technological leap is poised to impact a wide range of industries. In the automotive sector, the sensors’ supreme precision and reliability will enhance vehicle safety by enabling real-time monitoring of system health and performance. For civil engineering and infrastructure monitoring, this advancement ensures accurate detection of stress or strain in bridges, tunnels, and high-rise buildings, facilitating early interventions. In the energy sector, the sensors will enable superior monitoring and control of wind turbines and high- or medium voltage installations, contributing to improved safety, longer lifetime and more efficient capacity utilization.

“We’re thrilled to announce our latest breakthrough in FBG fiber sensing technology, enabling much more compact and cost-effective readout systems,” said Thijs Spuesens, CTO of Sentea. “This development marks a major milestone, as it not only enhances the performance of FBG sensors but also makes the technology more accessible to a broader range of industries at scale. We are excited to see how this innovation will transform structural health monitoring in construction, automotive, energy, and beyond.”

— end —

About section can be found below the image

About Sentea

Sentea leads the way in optical fiber sensing, delivering innovative solutions that enhance precision monitoring across a wide range of industries. Its cutting-edge FBG fiber sensors and readout systems are designed to provide continuous, highly accurate and reliable data in challenging environments. With a focus on creating accessible and cost-effective technologies, Sentea is committed to driving the future of fiber optic sensing across industries. For more information, visit www.sentea.com.

About fiber optic sensing

Fiber optic sensors use a specialty fiber designed to measure strain and temperature at multiple points distributed along the length of a fiber of up to several kilometers. A read-out system, also referred to as an interrogator, captures the optical signal from the sensing fiber and correlates it to strain, temperature, and derived parameters such as pressure, tilt, displacement, vibration and even current and the presence of certain chemicals. The inherent advantages of fiber optic sensors, such as light weight, small size, passive, low attenuation, immunity to electromagnetic interference, wide bandwidth and environmental ruggedness offset their major disadvantages of high cost of the interrogator. A step-change reduction in cost of fiber optic sensor interrogators will boost the utility and demand of fiber optic sensing in monitoring and process control even further. For more on fiber optic sensing, visit www.sentea.com/how-it-works.

About Structural Health Monitoring

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a process in which engineering structures are continuously monitored throughout their lifetime for early signs of defects or damages that over time could lead to catastrophic failure. By detecting any damage early on, and repairing or replacing the damaged part, catastrophic failure and the resulting downtime and significant repair costs can be avoided. Furthermore, the data gathered from SHM increases knowledge about the structures being monitored and allows for better designs for such structures in the future. A range of SHM solutions, such as fiber optic sensing, have found their way into engineering structures such as wind turbines, nuclear power plants, ships, trains, airplanes, buildings, bridges, dams, tunnels, heavy machinery and blast furnaces.

About Silicon Photonics

Silicon photonics is a technology whereby the functionality of optical components such as light sources, detectors, switches, wavelength (de-)multiplexers and filters can be integrated on a single chip. Having silicon as a base material, just like electronic chips, allows for using the well-established standard CMOS processes and manufacturing lines for production of these photonic chips. Decades of experience in the fabrication of electronic chips as well as a large installed base of semiconductor manufacturing capacity worldwide can be leveraged to scale up the production of low-cost optical chips. The sub-micron precision of microelectronic CMOS processes allows for silicon photonics chips to integrate a large variety of complex optical functions in a very small chip, enabling a wide variety of new applications and thereby driving a rapid expansion of the photonics industry. For more on silicon photonics, visit www.sentea.com/silicon-photonics.

About Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship / VLAIO

This technological break-through has been made possible with grants from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO).

Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) is the point of contact of the Flemish government for entrepreneurs in Flanders. VLAIO stimulates and supports innovation and entrepreneurship and contributes to the creation of a favourable business environment in conjunction with a host of partners (www.vlaio.be).