The Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT) is one of Europe's most ambitious infrastructure projects, set to revolutionize the connection between Munich and Verona. With a total length of 64 kilometers, it will become the longest underground railway connection in the world, significantly improving cross-Alpine traffic and shifting freight transport from road to rail.

Advancements in fiber-optic sensor technology are paving the way for groundbreaking infrastructure monitoring solutions. A recent testament to this is found deep beneath the streets of Munich, where our sensor cables are playing a pivotal role in overseeing the integrity of a connecting tunnel in Munich's subway system.

Dikes play a crucial role in protecting against floods and preventing damage to life and infrastructure. In light of climate change, improved monitoring technology is becoming increasingly important. In this context, a new distributed fiber-optic (DFO) monitoring system is being developed to detect infrastructural stability issues, erosion, and the exchange of groundwater and river water early on.

A research team from ETH Zurich in cooperation with the Icelandic Meteorological Office installed a fiber optic cable around the southern edge of the caldera to monitor the seismic activity of the Grimsvötn volcano and collect more detailed data.

NOR-FROST is the new near-surface fibre optic sensing test site in the backyard of NORSAR, an internationally recognized independent research foundation with specialization in seismology and seismic monitoring.

Fibre-​optic cables are emerging as a valuable tool for geoscientists and glaciologists. They offer a relatively inexpensive way of measuring even the tiniest glacial earthquakes – plus they can also be used to obtain more accurate images of the geological subsurface in earthquake-​prone megacities.