image: Researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel have demonstrated a new concept of optical fiber sensors that addresses a decades-long challenge: the distributed mapping of refractive index ...

The recent development in the utilization of flexible optical fiber sensors and the prospective application scenarios were then summarized, which encompass human activity monitoring and healthcare, ...

It’s always interesting to see how scientists and engineers have exploited—in the positive sense of the word—somewhat obscure, fundamental physics principles to create innovative sensors. For example, ...

The prospect of exploiting spider silk's combination of optical and mechanical properties has been an attractive proposition to designers for some time. Back in 2008 a project at Tufts University ...

Broken rails or damaged wheels can cause train accidents with potential loss of life, injury or property damage. Researchers at the University of Illinois are fabricating fiber-optic sensors that can ...

Fight Fire with Light: Fiber optic networks power the overwhelming majority of global internet traffic at any given moment. They can also be used to develop extremely precise light-based sensors, ...

Failures can occur in the electrical disconnect switches, fuses or circuit breakers that control, protect and isolate electrical equipment in electrical power systems, also known as switchgear. When a ...