OPTICAL SENSING & SOLUTIONS
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Optical Sensing & Solutions
Yaowen Li is a Senior Researcher in the Optical Sensing & Solutions Department at NEC Laboratories America. He obtained both B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering in China. After spending seven years working on mechanical structural testing and analysis and precision optical measurement techniques, he went on to obtain his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.
His thesis focused on fiber optic sensors and their demodulation schemes for dynamic strain measurements. Since his graduation, his work has been mainly on fiber Bragg gratings for telecom and industrial applications, fiber optic colorless tunable dispersion compensation devices for telecom, high-power fiber lasers, and fiber optic LiDAR systems.
His work in NEC Labs has focused on developing distributed fiber optic sensing systems for real-world applications. These systems include distributed acoustic sensors (DAS), distributed vibration sensors (DVS), distributed temperature sensors (DTS), Brillouin Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (BOTDR) based sensors, and other Rayleigh scattering-based distributed strain and temperature sensors. His current research also involves developing fiber optic microphones and hydrophone sensors for outdoor and underwater applications.
We present field trial on urban monitoring over telecom networks using Rayleigh-based distributed temperature/ strain sensor (DTSS), showing the capability of detecting subtle infrastructure signatures including manhole locations, road traffic, sprinklers and underground leakage events.
We demonstrate a low-cost wavelength selectable distributed vibration sensor to monitor the whole routes in a 1×32 PON architecture with a unified sensitivity. The results obtained from the lab and a field testbed are presented.
NEC Laboratories America is proud to participate in OECC 2026, the 31st Opto-Electronics and Communications Conference, taking place in Busan, South Korea. We look forward to connecting with the international photonics and communications community and sharing the work we’re doing to shape the next generation
We present methods and field trial results demonstrating an integrated distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) and distributed temperature sensing (DTS) system for manhole localization, condition diagnostics, and anomaly detection in pre-deployed telecommunication fiber networks. The proposed system leverages
We report a record long 200.6 km distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) link without inline ampli-fication, 28.6% improvement of sensing range has been achieved by using three segments of enhanced-scattering fibre (ESF) with progressively higher scattering enhancements.
Passive-Optical-Networks (PON) have emerged as a pivotal technology for broadband access network and are now expanding to wireless communication, supporting 5G and development of future 6G frameworks. PON systems are expected to find many new applications, including in electrical power grids, modern
Publication Date: 6/29/2025 Event: OECC/PSC 2025 Reference: WC2-1: 1-3, 2025 Authors: Paul S. Westbrook, OFS Labs; Benyuan Zhu, OFS Labs; Kenneth S. Feder, OFS Labs; Zhou Shi, OFS Labs; Tristan Kremp, OFS Labs; Yaowen Li, NEC Laboratories America, Inc.; Ting Wang, NEC Laboratories America, Inc.; David
We demonstrate a wavelength tunable Distributed-Vibration-Sensing over PON scheme using low-cost ITLA and Enhanced-Scattering-Fibers. Vibrations at frequency grids of 193.40THz and194.60THz in a PON with 1×16 splitter and 21 km feeder-fiber were successfully detected.
We present techniques to extend the sensing range in unrepeatered submarine cable systems by utilizing Enhanced-Scattering Fibre (ESF), large-area ultra-low-loss (ULL) fibre, and a digital Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) interrogator. A DAS sensing range of up to 200.6 km has been achieved using 156km
We propose a novel optical flow processing technique for distributed temperature and strain sensing with the chirped-pulse coherent OTDR. Unlike conventional 1-dimensional cross-correlation methods, the technique treats the 2-dimensional waterfall data as sequential video frames, estimating local shifts
Field trials of ambient noise-based automated methods for manhole localization and condition diagnostics using a real-time DAS/DTS integrated system were conducted. Crossreferencingmultiple sensing data resulted in a 94.7% detection rate and enhanced anomaly identification.
We present adaptive beamforming techniques to forward-transmission multi-event vibration sensing in environments with interference and jamming. Experimental validation over 100km fiber demonstrates significant improvements on signal reconstruction, noise reduction, and interference rejection from other
This study demonstrates an AI-driven method for detecting road deformations using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) over existing telecom fiber networks. Utilizingambient traffic noise, it enables real-time, long-term, and scalable monitoring for road safety.
The NEC Labs America team Yaowen Li, Andrea D’Amico, Yue-Kai Huang, Philip Ji, Giacomo Borraccini, Ming-Fang Huang, Ezra Ip, Ting Wang & Yue Tian (Not pictured: Fatih Yaman) has arrived in San Diego, CA for OFC24! Our team will be speaking and presenting throughout the event. Read more for an overview
We report significant noise reduction in distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) link using enhanced-scatter fibre (ESF). The longest reach of 195km DAS link without inline amplifications is also demonstrated. We further present demonstration of simultaneous fibre-optic sensing and 400Gb/s data transmissions
In recent years, the widespread use of drones has led to serious concerns about safety and privacy. Drone detection using microphone arrays has proven to be a promising method. However, it is challenging for microphones to serve large-scale applications due to the issues of synchronization, complexity,
Distributed fiber optic sensing systems use long section of optical fiber as the sensing media. Therefore, the fiber characteristics determines the sensing capability and performance. In this presentation, various types of specialty optical fibers and their sensing applications will be introduced and
We demonstrate the first fiber-optic drone detection method with ultra-highly sensitive optical microphones and distributed acoustic sensor. Accurate drone localization has been achieved through acoustic field mapping and data fusion.
Distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) is a rapidly evolving field that allows the existing optical fiber infrastructure for telecommunications to be reused for wide-area sensing. Using the backscattering mechanisms of glass—which includes Rayleigh, Brillouin, and Raman backscatter—it is possible
We demonstrate, for the first time, that cyclic linear pulse coding can be bipolar for BOTDA sensors, breaking the unipolar limitation of linear coding techniques and elevating the coding gain for a given code length.
Distributed fiber optical systems (DFOS) allow deployed optical cables to monitor the ambient environment over wide geographic area. We review recent field trial results, and show how DFOS can be made compatible with passive optical networks (PONs).
We demonstrate fiber optic sensing systems in a distributed fiber sensor network built on existing telecom infrastructure to detect temperature, acoustic effects, vehicle traffic, etc. Measurements are also demonstrated with different network topologies and simultaneously sensing four fiber routes with
We propose a novel multi-parameter sensing technique based on a Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry in the elliptical-core few-mode fiber, using higher-order optical and acoustic modes. Multiple Brillouin peaks are observed for the backscattering of both the LP01 mode and LP11 mode. We characterize
We propose a single-ended Brillouin-based sensor in elliptical-core few-mode optical fiber for multi-parameter measurement using spontaneous Brillouin scattering. Distributed sensing of temperature and strain is demonstrated over 0.5 km elliptical-core few-mode fiber.
