DEVIFO Project
Red Eléctrica de España uses HDAS technology developed by Aragón Photonics to guarantee electricity supply.
The system is based on fiber optic sensors that detect if the cable is vibrating and locate the exact point before signal loss occurs.
The DEVIFO (Detection of Vibrations with Fiber Optics) project carried out jointly with the Red Eléctrica de España team and started in 2017 with the objective of developing a system that would alert possible aggressions to underground power lines.
In this project, Aragón Photonics
is developing the complete solution, which includes hardware, signal processing and alarm management, with the technical support of the University of Zaragoza.
The pilot project takes advantage of the optical fiber that runs parallel to the electrical cables to install the HDAS sensors.
HDAS technology has also proved to be an ally in the detection of seismic movements.
After a successful test at the Plaza substation in Zaragoza, it was tested in the Strait of Gibraltar with an unexpected result.
In addition to monitoring underwater cables, the device developed by Aragón Photonics has proved useful for detecting seismic movements, since the sensors installed in the underwater stations are capable of verifying the measurement of vibrations coinciding with an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 on the Richter scale that occurred at that time in the province of Cadiz.
those dates in the province of Cadiz.
The HDAS device developed by Aragon Photonics is based on acoustic sensing, but how does it work?
Aragón Photonics has developed High Fidelity Distributed Acoustic Sensing (HDAS) technology that is capable of obtaining much more information about the state of the fiber, such as variations in the strain on each span, that can indicate potential problem locations before fiber losses are affected.
Another parameter that can warn of future problems is vibration due to spans that are suspended above the seabed, and therefore have an increased risk of hooking with anchors.
or nets.
The most radical change brought by HDAS is the incorporation of the ability to measure the magnitude of temperature and strain variations in the cable over short time periods, which has come to be defined in some areas as DTSGS (Distributed Temperature/Strain Gradient Sensing) or as “Quantitative DAS”. Aragón Photonics, in addition to manufacturing the equipment that allows this type of measurements, collaborates with several companies and R&D centers in various projects for monitoring submarine cables.
