Fibre and quantum sensors give machines new senses in Thuringia project
The QUANTIFISENS alliance, backed by around twelve million euros from Germany's research ministry, has developed fibre- and quantum-based sensor technologies over three years, cementing Thuringia's status as a hub for specialist optical fibres.
Sensors are the quiet workhorses of the AI era, offering people and machines fresh insight into the world around them and even inside the body. That makes the pursuit of small, precise and durable sensing technologies a priority.
Thuringia has a long history in advanced sensor technology, particularly optical technologies. Under the RUBIN funding programme ("Regional Entrepreneurial Alliances for Innovation"), eleven companies and two research institutions came together in the QUANTIFISENS alliance to stay at the leading edge of global innovation. With twelve million euros of support from the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR), they built new sensors based mainly on special glass fibres.
"Effective knowledge transfer between research and industry is our competitive advantage. The Fraunhofer Gesellschaft is a global leader in this field," said Dr Stephanie Hesse-Ertelt, senior research and development coordinator of the QUANTIFISENS alliance.
Medical imaging reimagined
A standout result was a self-navigating, imaging fibre probe designed for the operating theatre. It lets surgeons see tissue inside the body, such as in the heart, during an operation. Laser illumination and three separate imaging modes allow different tissue types to be visualised in different ways.
Tiny changes in the laser beam can also reveal how sharply and in which direction the fibre is bent. Combined with modern calibration methods and AI-supported data analysis, the probe always "knows" its own position. This removes the need for harmful X-rays during surgery. VR glasses display the images in real time, opening up gentler and more precise procedures. The system was built as a demonstrator and is available for further testing.
Listening to buildings
Fibre optics are usually associated with seeing, or at least with carrying optical signals. Yet they can also pick up acoustic signals - in effect, they can "hear". Even the smallest vibrations alter the transmitted optical signals, and suitable measurement technology can evaluate them to calculate changes in the fibres' surroundings.
Teams from Fraunhofer IOF and a telecommunications equipment supplier managed to detect and distinguish between noise and temperature changes at the same time. Special fibres were developed for this and bundled into a single cable. Laid within a building, such a cable can "hear" through its respective fibre whether there is stress in the concrete or, for instance, whether a fire has broken out.
Contributions from Fraunhofer IOF
The Fraunhofer IOF teams bring decades of experience to projects of this kind, in both technology development and collaboration with industry partners and technology transfer. Their portfolio is wide-ranging: alongside application-specific special fibres, they also developed quantum imaging methods for QUANTIFISENS.
In quantum imaging, one beam of light is directed at an object and another at a detector. Thanks to an exchange of information between the two beams in a nonlinear crystal, image information passes from the object to the detector even though the beams use different wavelengths. This allows extremely sensitive imaging with low-energy radiation, useful in fields such as medicine and materials science.
Sustainable impact and outlook
Bringing innovations into the economy in a lasting way calls for strong networks across the value chain, and this is precisely what the project delivered: the partners created not only a technology platform but also a robust regional network.
The exploitation phase now beginning aims to turn the results into products. Talks are already under way about follow-up projects in which hardware and software makers will collaborate closely. Artificial intelligence is central to this, being crucial for interpreting the complex signals from the sensors' "eyes and ears". In this way, QUANTIFISENS is set to have an impact well beyond the project period and to reinforce Thuringia's role as a location for future photonic technologies.
