FIBER-OPTIC SENSING: Optical fibers detect tunnel-digging

摘要

Beneath the nine-mile border between Gaza and Egypt lie an estimated 300 makeshift tunnels, according to a Jan. 12 article in Asia Times. And Israel insists that without them, Hamas would not be able to stockpile rockets and mortars. Thus, permanent monitoring and destruction of these tunnels is a key sticking point in the struggle in the region. During the SPIE's Defense, Security and Sensing Conference (April 13-17, Orlando, FL), researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will present a method of detecting creation of just these kinds of tunnels and pinpointing their locations. Principal researchers Assaf Klar and Raphael Linker, both of the Technion Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, say the system, based on fiber-optic cables, can locate even narrow tunnels at depths greater than 60 ft (see figure).