Optical fibers, which are a commodity for the telecommunications industry, have found their way into the sensing industry. In the early days, fiber optic sensor technology was adopted only by the oil and gas and defense sectors, because of the relatively high cost of the technology. However, thanks to new advancements in the development of low-cost optoelectronic systems, the technology is finding niche markets in other industry sectors including biomedical, environmental, transportation, structural health monitoring, and process industries. The industrial adoption of fiber optic sensors stems from unique features and technical capabilities unmatched by electronic sensors; these features include low-loss remote sensing, the ability to work in harsh environments, immunity to electromagnetic interference, small size, and capability of integrated and distributed sensing. The numbers of patents and scholarly articles published in the area of fiber optic sensing, new companies commercializing state-of-art fiber optic sensor technologies, and research and development (R&D) investments by renowned research centers indicate the global growth of this technology. According to the market research report Fiber Optic Sensors: Global Markets published by BCC Research in 2017, the global market size for fiber optic sensors is projected to reach $3.2 billion by 2021 from $2.0 billion in 2016 with a 5-year compound annual growth rate of around 10%. The world-class research on specialty optical fiber sensors (i.e., polymer fibers, photonic crystal fibers, femtosecond written fiber Bragg gratings, etc.) and the development of low-cost and affordable optical fiber sensor interrogators are the primary drivers for the adoption of the technology and emergence of new use cases for fiber optic sensing.

This book relays state-of-the-art research results and prospective advances in the field of fiber optic sensing with emphasis on opto-mechanical sensing applications. It is a consolidated collection of contributions by researchers in academia, research centers, and industrial R&D departments. The book aims at agglomerating recent research into one single source that is accessible to a wide range of audience. It provides a reference source for R&D engineers, scientists, application engineers, and technical managers in industries relevant to test and measurement and for university faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students practicing research in various engineering and applied science disciplines.