PhotonFirst and Curtiss-Wright Announce Collaboration to Bring Integrated Fibre Optic Sensing to Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI)

PhotonFirst, a leading innovator in Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensing technology and integrated photonics, and Curtiss-Wright, a global market leader in Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) solutions, today announced a collaboration to accelerate the adoption of fibre optic sensing technology within the aerospace flight test domain.

The collaboration combines PhotonFirst’s advanced integrated photonics-based FBG interrogator technology with Curtiss-Wright’s extensive expertise and market position in aerospace and defence FTI systems. As part of the collaboration, PhotonFirst’s FBG sensing products will be further adapted and optimised for use within Curtiss-Wright’s FTI environments and architectures.

Fibre Optic Sensing offers several key advantages over conventional electrical sensing technologies for aerospace applications. These include significant reductions in weight, size and complexity, immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI), high multiplexing capability, and the ability to perform highly accurate real-time measurements of strain, temperature, vibration, and structural health in harsh operating environments.

As the aerospace industry continues to focus on structural health monitoring, predictive
maintenance and overall platform efficiency, both companies expect market demand for FBG-based sensing solutions to grow rapidly in the coming years. The combination of integrated photonics and proven FTI expertise is expected to help enable scalable deployment of fibre optic sensing technology across current and future aerospace platforms.

“Fibre optic sensing is increasingly recognised as a key enabling technology for next-generation aerospace platforms with a growing need for high-quality data,” said Leendert-Jan Nijstad, CEO at PhotonFirst. “By combining our integrated photonics-based sensing technology with Curtiss-Wright’s deep expertise in flight test instrumentation, we believe we can significantly accelerate adoption of fibre optic sensing within the aerospace market.”

“Aircraft manufacturers and defence customers are continuously looking for solutions that reduce weight, improve reliability, and increase the amount of actionable data available during testing and operation,” said Aidan Darmody, Site Lead, Curtiss-Wright Defence Solutions. “We see strong potential for FBG technology to become an important part of future FTI architectures.”

Further details regarding the collaboration and future developments will be shared at a later stage.