Vodafone FiberSense partnership could aid AVs

Vodafone New Zealand is expanding its FiberSense partnership pilot to Wellington to protect customers from unexpected underground issues such as quakes, water leaks, and civil works which might lead to disruptions.

However, it can also help make autonomous vehicles (AVs) a reality by providing real time views (including out-of-sight moving objects, and soon pedestrians and cyclists as well).

The Wellington pilot uses sophisticated sensors on fibre cables to proactively monitor for natural disasters, civil works, or third-party issues such as water and gas leaks, providing 24/7 monitoring on more than 100km of fibre cables within Vodafone’s optical network in central Wellington.

Super-precise vibration sensors the equivalent of a virtual sensor every three to five metres will improve network resilience for Vodafone services and are now available to third parties, Vodafone New Zealand says.

“This follows a successful pilot in Auckland and makes Vodafone New Zealand the first telco in Australasia to be able to deliver FiberSense’s monitoring technology to customers.”

This means Vodafone can provide utilities such as water and gas companies with data about underground issues while capturing vital information on seismic activity, plus enable other smart city applications such as traffic monitoring.

“We are excited about the opportunity to utilise our network in new and innovative ways and working with FiberSense to turn our optical network into a massive sensing array is an exciting opportunity to expand our product offerings and provide new value-added services to our customers,” Vodafone New Zealand chief technology officer Tony Baird says.

FiberSense founder and chief executive Dr Mark Englund says its Digital Asset sensing service helps mitigate the impact of events such as quakes and leaks but can also be used for smart city and vehicle tracking for clients that use the Vodafone network as a massive sensor array.

This means FiberSense can help AVs become a “legislated reality by delivering total awareness of moving objects and other events around them, even beyond line of sight”.