According to reports, the protection of borders, pipelines, underground cables and critical infrastructure from accidental damage and vandalism has often faced many difficulties due to its long distance and large scale. Today, British engineers and technicians have developed an underground cable optical fiber sensing system that effectively solves this problem.
The longest distance of this system is 40 kilometers. It can use existing fiber optics and can also be installed and installed. It can also detect multi-point interference at the same time, and the accuracy can reach within 10 meters.
Engineers pointed out that if used in the border and surrounding security protection areas, anyone's climbing, cutting or excavating activities will touch the sensor and cause an alarm. After that, the system will classify the interference, provide the location of the interference, and start other auxiliary devices or sensors (such as cameras) to ensure that the operator can make an appropriate response. If used in cable and pipe protection, any activity, such as an excavator approaching or a manhole cover being lifted, will trigger an alarm.
The system is sensitive to sound and can also be used to monitor the fluid passing through the pipe to determine the location of the blockage and leakage.
Each pipeline accident may give the operator a cumulative cost of 1 million to 5 million U.S. dollars, including maintenance, product loss, and failure time. If there is environmental pollution or human casualties, the cost may still increase significantly. The OptaSense system developed by British company QinetiQ is of great significance to pipeline operators. Real-time leak alerts and location reports can save operators millions of dollars in expenses.
Third-party damage is the most common cause of serious pipeline failures. This new system supports in-line inspections to prevent problems and even provide acoustic analysis of pipeline conditions.
The company’s spokesperson said: “This technology is not only suitable for monitoring mechanical failures in critical underwater infrastructure, it is also suitable for perimeter security to detect intruders.â€
This system combines standard single-mode fiber optics and control analysis software to continuously monitor the entire fiber to discover, locate, and categorize multiple simultaneous interferences. At the same time, the system is easy to install and operate, and high-quality acoustic characteristics can also be monitored through headphones.
This technology may bring significant value shortly after installation, and due to the wide range of potential applications, it is possible to improve the management of assets throughout the life cycle from mining to operations.
For example, the new system is applied to the development of oil and gas fields so that drilling operations can rely on sound to find, identify, and locate events that occur through the use of fiber optic cables. This is not possible with existing capabilities, but will improve design and implementation, improve recovery capabilities, and reduce costs.