Abstract
This work presents an autonomous system for marine integrated physical-chemical and biological monitoring - the MarinEye system. It comprises a set of sensors providing diverse and relevant information for oceanic environment characterization and marine biology studies. It is constituted by a physical-chemical water properties sensor suite, a water filtration and sampling system for DNA collection, a plankton imaging system and biomass assessment acoustic system. The MarinEye system has onboard computational and logging capabilities allowing it either for autonomous operation or for integration in other marine observing systems (such as Observatories or robotic vehicles. It was designed in order to collect integrated multi-trophic monitoring data. The validation in operational environment on 3 marine observatories: RAIA, BerlengasWatch and Cascais on the coast of Portugal is also discussed.

Abstract

Abstract
We report on the integration of optical fiber containing Bragg gratings in the structure of both optical and power cables. It is shown that fiber Bragg gratings provide an efficient method to monitor quasi-distributed mechanical strength along optical cables. This technology is also applied to the monitoring of temperature in power cables for transmission/distribution infrastructures. We show that there are no losses introduced during the cabling process, and the temperature sensitivity of the fiber Bragg grating was found to be only slightly affected by the extrusion process. Results are presented for cable operation in real environment.

Abstract
Monitoring and control of RTM process is essential to minimise trial and errors and optimise cycle productions. Hence a research programme was established to study different systems to control the process. In this paper, several experiments are described in which an on-line system based on fibre Bragg sensors was implemented.

Abstract
The accompanying of civil infrastructures behavior during their whole life cycle is growing within the last few years. This fact is due to several problems detected in such structures, which is the main reason for the dispended budget by owners in their maintenance, being even higher than other costs. In another way, traditional surveillance techniques, although important are expensive, slow in time and subjective. Considering such panorama, within a national research project - SMARTE project - a new technique for management and maintenance of structures was developed and implemented in a real structure, a pre-stressed concrete bridge (Sorraia River Bridge). The developed technique, long term structural health monitoring, has as a final purpose the execution of structural maintenance in an objective and efficient way. The evaluation of the structural behavior during whole life cycle is performed in an "on line" continuous way, allowing the on time detection of existent damages. Civil infrastructures health monitoring should have the potential for the on time detection of possible anomalies or critical situations, diminishing costs related to inspections and simultaneously growing structural and users' security. Inserted in a research project - SMARTE project - a new surveillance technique for the prevention and support of civil infrastructures maintenance and management was applied into a real prototype structure - Sorraia River Bridge (Perdigão et al. 2004). The developed long term structural health monitoring is composed by a sensory, a data acquisition, a communication, a data processing and archiving and damage detection and modelling system (Figueiras et al. 2004, Matos et al. 2005). Figure 1 presents a simple and illustrative scheme of it. SMARTE project has two main objectives. The first one is related to the installation of the sensory system in the bridge, during it execution phase, which should be liable and robust. In Fig. 2 it is possible to observe the used cantilever constructive process and utilized instrumentation devices (Figueiras et al. 2004). This respective component, based on sensors that were placed in special locations according to a previously established criteria, will allow the readings and storage of most important parameters for a correct interpretation of the structure behaviour during it whole life cycle. The second main objective is related to the development of a component for data processing and archiving. Such system should translate the obtained data in more objective information that could be used as decision criteria for civil infrastructures management. In this article it is presented the SMARTE project and respective main objectives. A brief description of each system of the developed and implemented long term structural health monitoring scheme is also executed. The initially proposed objectives were achieved and new research themes appeared with this project. A new project was so initialized which aim is to continue the Sorraia River Bridge long term monitoring and to develop the previous identified investigation subjects. (Figure Presented) © 2006 Taylor & Francis Group.

Abstract
This work present and demonstrated an applications of artificial neural network approach in optical sensing. The conventional matrix method used in simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature with optical Bragg gratings is compared with artificial neural network approach. The alternative method is proposed for reduced the error.