SENSEI: Unlocking the sensing capabilities of telecommunication fiber networks

Exail announces its participation in the SENSEI* European project. SENSEI aims to develop new photonic devices and technologies to enhance the security, resilience, and efficiency of telecommunication fiber networks through improved supervision capabilities, while exploiting them as large-scale distributed environmental sensors. Funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe program with €5 million over 3 years, the project brings together 15 partners from 6 EU countries with diversified and complementary expertise in photonics, optical metrology, geoscience, optical networking and network provisioning.

SENSEI stems from the idea that the conventional network elements enabling telecommunications (e.g. transceivers or amplifiers), as well as the fiber cable itself, can host ad-hoc sensing capability while carrying data. Specifically, the fiber is subject to external stress and deformations due to ambient or anthropogenic noise affecting data transmission parameters. These deformations can be recorded by suitable photonic techniques, turning the global telecommunication network into a distributed and pervasive grid with thousands of sensing endpoints.

SENSEI will develop techniques to probe fibers already in use for data traffic, fitting the network’s architectural constraints without causing service disruption. Furthermore, it will design dedicated protocols to handle data collected by a heterogeneous set of sensing elements and integrate them into the network control architecture. This is a crucial step towards extracting exploitable information from a huge volume of data.

To demonstrate relevant use cases, SENSEI will have access to thousands of kilometers of fibers deployed in various environments, ranging from the Mediterranean Sea to volcanic and seismic areas in Italy and Iceland, but also aerial cables and telecommunication networks in metropolitan areas. The consortium partners will rely heavily on existing infrastructures used by National Metrology Institutes to carry precise time signals, such as the Italian Quantum Backbone in Italy and Refimeve in France. SENSEI will involve commercial operators and network providers.

“Fibers carry most of data traffic globally, and it is an urgent and strategic priority for Europe to ensure the integrity of this fiber network” says SENSEI coordinator Cecilia Clivati from INRiM. “Using the fiber itself for both the communication and the supervision of the infrastructure would help to prevent service disruption, making communication more resilient. Moreover, the unrivalled pervasiveness of optical data networks could improve seismic monitoring and extend the reach of geophysical and oceanographic exploration, potentially supporting the development of next-generation early warning systems and a better understanding of the dynamics of our planet.”

“At Exail, we see SENSEI as a great opportunity to advance frequency transfer over fiber technologies that were developed as part of the REFIMEVE project, such as the Regeneration Laser Station (RLS) and the Multi-branch Laser Station (MLS). These are industry-grade solutions derived from laboratory prototypes, designed to distribute a frequency-stabilized signal through fiber telecom network between dozens of metrology labs in France and Europe.” says Bruno Desruelle, head of photonics activities at Exail. “The development of new functionalities will enable these fiber telecom networks to be upgraded with acoustic sensing capabilities that, with modest investment, could enable large-scale seismic mapping with excellent resolution.”

*Smart European Networks for Sensing the Environment and Internet quality
Start date: December 1^st, 2024 / Duration: 3 years / Budget: € 4.97 million
Website: senseiproject.eu/