Design and utilization of fiber networks for temperature monitoring along cable lines

The paper briefly reviews advanced opportunities to measure the temperature by means of long cable sensors. Then it concentrates on the practical problem of monitoring the temperature in arrangements for the layout of cables as channels or suspensions. Such networks of cable lines are an important infrastructure of buildings or industrial sites, for instance. Optical time domain reflectrometry (OTDR) on the basis of long optical fibers as passive sensors is especially suited to this problem of temperature measurement. The paper continues with a formal analysis of the practical task to design the layout of sensor cables, i.e., to determine the routes of them through a network of cable channels. Furthermore the relations between this task and well-known mathematical problems are disclosed. On this basis opportunities of computer support for the solution of this special kind of practical layout problems are pointed out. Finally the paper deals with the utilization of the temperature data in the frame of computer-aided facility management (CAFM)