Systems and Monitoring Apparata Based on Reflectometric Techniques for Enhanced Revealing

Most sensing networks rely on punctual/local sensors, thus lacking the ability to spatially resolve the quantity-to-be-monitored (e.g., a temperature profile, a humidity profile, etc.) without relying on the deployment of numerous inline sensors. At the state of the art, most quasi-distributed or distributed sensing technologies rely on the use of optical fiber systems; however, these are generally expensive and this limits their large-scale adoption. On the other hand, recently, elongated sensing elements have been successfully used with time-domain reflectometry (TDR) for implementing diffused monitoring solutions. The advantage of TDR is that this is a relatively low-cost technology, with adequate measurement accuracy and the potential to be customized to suit the specific needs of different application contexts of the 4.0 Era. Starting from these considerations, this paper addresses the design, implementation and experimental validation of a novel generation of elongated sensing element networks (SENs) that can be permanently installed in the systems to be monitored and used for obtaining the diffused profile of the quantity-to-be-monitored. In particular, as case studies, three applications are considered: monitoring irrigation process in agriculture (SEN-A, agriculture); leak detection in underground pipes (SEN-W, water); and monitoring of building structures (SEN-B, building).