Optical Fibre-based Data-driven Predictive Maintenance System

Lead  Prof. TAM Hwa-yaw

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering | Photonics Research Institute

Research led by Prof. Tam Hwa-yaw on optical fibre technologies has led to the development of the world’s first optical fibre-based predictive maintenance system. This has driven a shift from costly and inefficient scheduled maintenance regimes to predictive maintenance.

The team’s innovative system has been leveraged in the metro systems in Hong Kong and Singapore, which serve 8.8million daily passengers, for railway monitoring. It captures real-time conditions of tracks, train cars and bogies through optical fibre sensors, and detects excessive and abnormal vibrations in rail tracks to identify potential faults.

With its advanced predictive maintenance capabilities, the system has found broader applications, including overhead power line inspections in the Netherlands in 2015. It successfully identified developing faults, including a deteriorating power line along the Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport Line that required attention.

The underpinning technology has also been applied in modern smart buildings for condition monitoring of lifts and escalators to support prognostic maintenance and improve service reliability.
 

RAE 2020 Impact Case Study