Fiber sensing: Safran at the forefront

Well known for its applications in the telecoms sector, fiberoptics, or optical fiber, opens huge prospects for progress and innovation in aerospace because of its robustness and immunity to electromagnetic radiation. What’s more, it can be transformed to serve as a temperature sensor or to measure stresses such as pressure and vibration. “This technology, which is mature in the civil engineering industry, is also proving operationally promising for certain types of ground tests,” says Ghislain Guerrero, business development and innovation director at Safran Data Systems. He continues: “Its use in flight will allow continuous real-time analysis of what’s happening in the most complex areas of an aircraft — and with minimal intrusiveness, unlike electrical sensors today. For example, we could build it directly into composite parts. However, this solution still presents difficulties, which we’re working to overcome, such as resistance to vibration, shock and temperature variations in the optronic parts connected to the fiber.”