Joint Fiber-Optic Communications and Sensing

Dear Colleagues,

Since early 1990s, we have experienced the development of fiber monitoring solutions to ease the maintenance of communication networks. Since 2000, during the rapid growth of passive optical network deployment in access areas—including fiber-to-the-home services, and, later, mobile transport—network operators have faced the challenge of high maintenance costs. Thus, efficient and effective end-to-end fiber monitoring has become essential to research.

On the other hand, photonic technologies have been used for sensing applications for many years. Conditions of the environment surrounding the optical fiber or a localized photonic sensor can be immediately detected with high accuracy and resolution. This includes the detection of vibrations, temperature, and strain, which could indicate car traffic, train position, earthquakes, degrading infrastructure conditions or overheating infrastructure components.

Nowadays, we see a new paradigm shift of joint communication and sensing in fiber optic networks. In other words, the in-service telecom fiber network can serve as a basis for sensing solutions. Ideally, network supervision solutions would provide both monitoring and sensing functionalities. The collected data could be used by third-party companies or city utilities to further optimize their operations.

It is the objective of this Special Issue to collect contributions on research efforts concerning joint communications and sensing in fiber optic networks. Researchers, scientists, and engineers focused on newest technological advancements in components and (sub-)systems, proof-of-concept experiments, and field trials are warmly encouraged to submit manuscripts. The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following aspects (keywords):

• Optical fiber sensors in communication infrastructure;
• In-service fiber monitoring;
• Distributed sensing;
• Reflectometry;
• Interferometry;
• Remote network supervision;
• Optical instrumentation and measurement;
• Long-haul network;
• Metro network;
• Access network;
• Passive optical network;
• Point-to-point network architecture;
• Point-to-multipoint network architecture.

Dr. Patryk Urban
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• optical fiber sensors in communication infrastructure
• in-service fiber monitoring
• distributed sensing
• reflectometry
• interferometry
• remote network supervision
• optical instrumentation and measurement
• long-haul network
• metro network
• access network
• passive optical network
• point-to-point network architecture
• point-to-multipoint network architecture