A sensing revolution: Combined sensing architectures for global tectonic and infrastructure modelling.

Optical communications networks are undergoing a transformative phase, driven by the dual demands for increased connectivity and real-time data acquisition. Recent developments in the field have highlighted the potential of integrating high-speed optical communication and sensing, offering an ambitious holistic approach to data acquisition, monitoring, and network state analysis. There is now a real opportunity to transform the telecommunications networks, producing the enormous amount of data, into a globe-spanning distributed sensing system with applications ranging from environmental surveillance, such as earthquake and tsunami tracking, to infrastructure monitoring and anomalies detection. However, this requires reconsideration of the specifications of communications techniques, signal characteristics and devices, as well as system designs and architectures to realise the potential for exploitation in other contexts, thereby leveraging considerable value from the significant costs of network installation.

To address this opportunity, ECSTATIC will design and develop novel interferometry and polarisation-based sensing technologies that substantially advance the state of the art in vibration and acoustic fibre-optic sensing techniques in terms of reach, sensitivity, and localization capabilities, by offering a wide palette of effective solutions that can be tailored in different use cases, while guaranteeing the coexistence of the sensing signal with live data traffic. New light-based technologies will be integrated with advanced DSP and machine learning techniques enhancing their performance. Furthermore, the project will produce systems for real-time digital signal acquisition capable to detect and characterise environmental effects and monitor in real-time the properties of the communication channel – including its nonlinear characteristics. These developments are essential for the envisaged real-world application of the ECSTATIC technologies and will enable monitoring of different events (natural events, mechanical vibrations, ambient noise, structural health) and channel quality (power, nonlinear effects, etc.) in real time.

ECSTATIC is a unique initiative that seeks to evaluate the most important fibre-optic sensing techniques in real-life telecommunication infrastructures, integrating high-speed optical communication with distributed sensing, offering real-time data acquisition, monitoring, and analysis. This integration promises to enhance the intelligent functionalities of ubiquitous optical networks, pushing the boundaries of what is achievable with traditional optical communication systems. At the end of the project, a thorough understanding of the capabilities, cost, and compatibility with telecom infrastructure will have been acquired to initiate standardization of fibre-optic sensing in operational network environments.

“SafeIT – Wearable systems for the safety and wellbeing applied in security guards”, Research-Create-Innovate 2nd Cycle, National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2014-2020, 2020

Wearable devices and augmented reality are rapidly evolving and are particularly applicable in the service sector, such as safety, health, education, etc. In the field of security services, in particular the no-contact / lone security positions, device handler technology can offer innovative services. In particular, it can further secure the individual protection of staff in existing security services and improve their mental concentration and perceptual capacity, which assists in decision-making. Portable devices can detect the presence, biometric data of the guardian, and many additional elements that are useful both in the service they perform and the personal safety of the workers.

The goal of the project is to develop systems and applications that will receive and process data from smart wearable to record biometric data for the purposes of health and vital safety monitoring, positioning and presence / commencement / ending of the shift, direct notification and other required services, such as indications of danger, attack, etc. These devices will automatically wirelessly connect with additional equipment (ambient sensors and positional beacons) and their data will be combined with the cameras data. Systems of Augmented / Mixed reality will also be developed in addition to simply record and track signals, more effectively manage the data from incident management center operators and supporting decision-making by the end user (guardian).

Due to the variety of data to be transmitted and stored, a combination of modern signal processing and machine learning techniques is needed through the creation of a knowledge base. The latter will be shaped by the data collected per event. There will also be use of pioneering security techniques which combine multi-parametric authentication, such as the use of biometric elements (something the user is) with equipment components (somethingthe user has), which will be physically resistant to cloning, that is to say they will exhibit structural features that will make them unique. Some of the most important issues that will be addressed in the project are the data transmission security and the use of blockchain technology for secure data storage (protection against unauthorized data alteration, PUF assisted encryption), as well as the use of security technologies to protect personal data (use of nicknames and aliases, PUF reciprocal authentication). In the strand of augmented reality, the technological innovation that the project introduces is multidimensional. More specifically, this project is the first national effort to develop an integrated augmented/mixed reality platform that acts on both the field and the control center. The development of AR interfaces for managing information in the field of security services is an innovation of the project. Also, the development of ergonomic interfaces based on the geometric representation of the area of interest combined with the use of maps in an augmented reality environment is another innovation the project aspires to introduce. Finally, all applications that will be deployed will respect the privacy of users by complying to the requirements of innovative and academically recognized methodologies, while ensuring all the technical and organizational requirements set by the new General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GCC-GDPR) are met.