Fibre optical sensors offer several significant advantages over conventional electrical sensors. The most important advantages are:
They're rugged passive components with a long life time (20 years).
They form an intrinsic part of the fibre optic cable that can transmit the measurement signal over several tens of kilometers.
They show no interference with electromagnetic radiation, so they can function in many hostile environments where conventional sensors would fail.
They don't make use of electrical signals which makes them explosion safe.
There is a possibility to multiplex many sensors in one optical fibre, driving down the cost of complex sensor networks.
FOS&S technologies are all based on fibre optical sensing and can be divided into three main categories: