A review of recent research on structural monitoring in railway industry is proposed in this paper, with a special focus on stress-based solutions. After a brief analysis of the mechanical behaviour of ballasted railway tracks, an overview of the most common monitoring techniques is presented. A special attention is paid on strain gages and accelerometers for which the accurate mounting position on the track is requisite. These types of solution are then compared to another modern approach based on the use of optical fibres. Besides, an in-depth discussion is made on the evolution of numerical models that investigate the interaction between railway vehicles and tracks. These models are used to validate experimental devices and to predict the best location(s) of the sensors. It is hoped that this review article will stimulate further research activities in this continuously expanding field.

Motivations, challenges and requirements of optical layer monitoring in PONs are discussed. An exhaustive review of monitoring systems is given considering both Time-Division Multiplexed PON (TDM-PON) and Wavelength-Division Multiplexed PON (WDM-PON) cases.

In this paper, we discuss the operation principles, challenges and application areas of optical frequency domain reflectometry technique. A review of OFDR systems is given considering both Incoherent-OFDR and Coherent-OFDR groups. Results obtained by different research groups are compared in terms of performance characteristics, and future perspectives. Recent progresses obtained within our laboratory are also presented.

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Abstract-We present the analysis of a quasi-distributed fiber sensor based on the concatenation of identical low-reflective fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) taking into account both multireflection and spectral-shadowing crosstalks. This allows obtaining more realistic values of the design parameters such as the maximum number of sensing points, the reflectivity of the gratings, and the distance between the sensing points.Index Terms-Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), fiber optics sensors, interferometry, optical frequency domain reflectometer (OFDR).

Optimal operation, reduced energy consumption, longer service availability, and high safety level are the major concerns in today's railway transport systems. Smart monitoring systems should address these issues without interrupting railway operability. Many successful works have been carried out to provide railway monitoring functions using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors on rail. Most of them are based on strain measurement due to the train passage. This paper presents a highly sensitive means for railway monitoring based on vibration measurement. FBG accelerometers placed on sleeper have been employed as sensor heads, which significantly facilitated the field sensor installation work compared to the positioning on the foot of the rail. An optimized signal demodulation algorithm has been effectively used to extract from the accelerometer traces both the axle number and the average speed information. Excellent capability of the developed system to obtain both parameters has been demonstrated by the way of field trials carried out on a Belgian railway line, during its normal operation. Easy installation, multi-function diagnosis, good data integrity, and compatibility with fiber optic sensors make the proposed sensor a good candidate for railway monitoring applications.

This paper investigates the performance when the IEEE 802.11g standard is used in a radio-over-fiber (RoF) network. We report that the IEEE 802.11g throughput may be dramatically deteriorated in RoF systems. We then show the possibility to adapt the slottime parameter in order to improve the IEEE 802.11g performances in RoF networks.Index Terms-Radio over fiber (RoF), IEEE 802.11, MAC, performance evaluation.

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