A hair-like optical fiber with a variety of “customized” outerwear, according to different geological environments and multiple monitoring requirements, becomes sensitive and strong “earth sensing nerve”, making real-time monitoring and early warning of potential disasters on the earth possible.
On the morning of January 8, 2019, the 2018 National Science and Technology Awards Conference was held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Party and state leaders such as Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Huning, and Han Zheng attended the conference and presented awards to the winners. The 2018 National Science and Technology Awards selected 278 projects and 7 scientific and technical experts. Among them, 38 national natural science awards, 67 national technical invention awards, and 173 national scientific and technological progress awards. Professor Bin Shi’s research project “Geological Engineering Distributed Optical Fiber Monitoring Key Technology and Its Application” won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.
The key research team (Chun-de Piao, Guang-qing Wei, Dan Zhang, Bin Shi, Ji-song Yan, Hong-hu Zhu, Wei Zhang, Zhi-hui Zhang, Jing Wang from left to right)
Professor Bin Shi initiated the idea of developing distributed optical fiber monitoring technology for geological engineering during the investigation of the flood control of the Yangtze River flood control site in 1998. Since then, he led the team to develop the geological engineering distributed optical fiber monitoring technology after 20 years of unremitting research and development. The research team has made new breakthroughs in the geological engineering disaster mechanism and theoretical criteria, and realized the whole process innovation from basic research—core technology—hardware equipment—system integration—result transformation-engineering application-theoretical breakthrough. There are completely independent intellectual property rights in the developed technology and equipment. More than 40 kinds of products have been introduced to the market and have been applied in more than 300 important projects at home and abroad, resulting in significant social and economic benefits. This is another important achievement that China’s scientific research team has made in the field of geology and geotechnical monitoring to lead the international science and technology frontier.
