Optical Fiber Sensors in Physical Intrusion Detection Systems: A Review

Abstract

Fiber optic sensors have become a mainstream sensing technology within a large array of applications due to their inherent benefits. They are now used significantly in structural health monitoring, and are an essential solution for monitoring harsh environments. Since their first development over thirty years ago, they have also found promise in security applications. This paper reviews all of the optical fiber based techniques used in physical intrusion detection systems. It details the different approaches used for sensing, interrogation and networking, by research groups, attempting to secure both commercial and residential premises from physical security breaches. The advantages and disadvantages of the systems are discussed and each of the different perimeter protection methods are outlined, namely, in-ground, perimeter fence, and window and door protection. The study reviews the progress in optical fiber based intrusion detection techniques from the past through to current state-of-the-art systems and identifies areas which may provide opportunities for improvement, as well as proposing future directions in this field.

An optic-fiber fence intrusion recognition system using mixture Gaussian hidden Markov models

“…And comparisons of our approach with our previous GA-SVM [3] were also performed, which has been applied commercially 1 .…”

“…A detailed review on PIDS using the optical fiber sensors was conducted by Allwood et al [1]. They separated the techniques into three categories: (1) interferometry, (2) scattering, and (3) fiber Bragg grating based detection [1].…”

“…They separated the techniques into three categories: (1) interferometry, (2) scattering, and (3) fiber Bragg grating based detection [1]. Among them, the interferometry based PIDSs are widely used, especially for the systems using Sagnac interferometers [2,3,4,5].…”

Distributed Intrusion Sensor Using DFB Laser with Optical Feedback and Saturable Absorber

“…Thus, multiple sensors were required using cascaded or array architecture to provide intruder location information. The intrusion sensing technique using Rayleigh scattering in a single-mode optical fiber had the advantage of providing distance information; however, the sensitivity in optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) configuration [12] was not sufficient for underground burial application. The phase-sensitive Φ-OTDR had fully distributed extremely high sensitivity with accurate localization and simultaneous multipoint detection capability in comparison to other optical fiber intrusion sensors.…”

Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors for Mainstream Industrial Processes

“…Moreover, the lack of FBG sensing and interrogation standards, means the technology has only significantly progressed in niche applications, such as structural health monitoring [6,7] and protection of industrial assets [8], which will not be covered in detail in this review article. An extensive review of fibre based opto-acoustic sensors used in structural health monitoring is given in [9] and a review of optical fibre sensors specifically for physical security applications is provided in [10].…”