AP Sensing GmbH is a developer and manufacturer of distributed fibre-optic sensing (DFOS) technology products. It is headquartered in

Böblingen Böblingen (; ) is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, seat of Böblingen (district), Böblingen District. Sindelfingen and Böblingen are Geographic contiguity, contiguous. History Böblingen was founded by Count Wilhelm von Tübingen-Bö ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The company was founded in 2007 after spinning off from

Agilent Technologies Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American global company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for laboratories. Agilent was established in 1999 as a spin-off from Hewlett-Packar ...

. AP Sensing operates in

Asia Pacific Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. AP Sensing is a member of the Fiber Optic Sensing Association (FOSA). The technology is used for fire detection in assets (i.e. tunnels, conveyor belts and special hazard buildings) and in power cable-, pipeline-, well & reservoir- and rail-monitoring systems as well as in geo- and hydrological monitoring applications.

History and leadership

AP Sensing was founded in November 2007 and is based in

. The company originated as a part of

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

, which had begun investing in fibre-optic technology before spinning off

in 1999. Clemens Pohl, one of the founders of AP Sensing, establishing the fibre-optic sensing business of Agilent before spinning off AP Sensing as a separate business in 2007. At its founding, its managing directors were Clemens Pohl and Gerd Koffmane. Clemens Pohl is the CEO, the Director of Operations is Uwe Keppler, and the Business Director is Henrik Hoff. Wieland Hill is director of instruments R&D) and Martin Strohbach is director of software solutions and artificial intelligence. It is a member of the Fiber Optic Sensing Association (FOSA), an industry organization that promotes the use of fibre-optic sensing technology. Martin Strohbach of AP Sensing was elected to a board seat in 2024. According to ''Focus'' business magazine, they rank as the best employers in Germany in the electronics industry as of 2025. AP Sensing partners with WeForest, a conservationist group, and

Care International CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, formerly Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) is a major international humanitarian agency delivering emergency relief and long-term international development projects. Founded i ...

Products and implementation

Distributed fibre-optic sensing (DFOS) technology is in use in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as in Africa. AP Sensing designed its

Distributed Temperature Sensing Distributed temperature sensing systems (DTS) are optoelectronic devices which measure temperatures by means of optical fibres functioning as linear sensors. Temperatures are recorded along the optical sensor cable, thus not at points, but as a co ...

(DTS) technology to monitor assets such as power cables and pipelines over large distances as well as for fire detection in tunnels, industrial conveyor belts and special hazard buildings. In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, AP Sensing's

Distributed Acoustic Sensing Rayleigh scattering-based distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems use fiber optic cables to provide distributed strain sensing. In DAS, the optical fiber cable becomes the sensing element and measurements are made, and in part processed, using a ...

/Vibration Sensing (DAS/DVS) technology is used by the

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport ...

to collect data from rail lines in order to boost safety and security. AP Sensing has worked with the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

on the Sofia Windfarm project. The company has collaborated with the University of Darmstadt and DB Net AG to create the FOSSIL (Fibre Optic Sensing for Safety Integrity Level) 4.0 project. Partially funded by the German

Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport The Federal Ministry for Transport (, ; abbreviated BMV) is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its main office is located in Berlin, while the majority of its civil servants and employees work in Bonn, the secondary s ...

, the project investigates whether FOS-based digital twins can be used to improve railway security. The company operates in

, the

, and the

. Distributed fiber-optic sensing technology can be used for leak detection through DAS and DTS. AP Sensing has a regional office in

Bahrain Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...

, and operates throughout the

. Their Distributed Fibre Optic Sensing is designed to monitor pipeline leaks, and is used by the

Kuwait Oil Company Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), an oil company headquartered in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, is a subsidiary of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, a government-owned holding company. Kuwait was the world's 10th largest petroleum and other liquids producer in ...

and the

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (), known by its acronym ADNOC, is the state-owned Petroleum industry, oil company of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It is the world's 12th largest oil company by production. As of 2021, the company has an oi ...

. In

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, AP Sensing technology used for cable monitoring by the

Saudi Electricity Company Saudi Electricity Company (; SEC) is the Saudi Electric utility, electric energy company. It enjoys a near monopoly on the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power in Saudi Arabia through 45 power generation plants in the coun ...

, and water pipeline monitoring and leak detection by the

Saline Water Conversion Corporation Saudi Water Authority (SWA), formerly the Saline Water Conversion Corporation, is a Saudi Arabian government authority responsible for regulating and monitoring water sector business and services to enhance water sustainability across the Kingdo ...

. Since 2019, the Earthquake Research Institute of the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

incorporates an AP Sensing DAS interrogator unit to monitor seismic activity off the coast of

Sanriku , sometimes known as , lies on the northeastern side of the island of Honshu, corresponding to today's Aomori, Iwate and parts of Miyagi Prefecture and has a long history. The 36 bays of this irregular coastline tend to amplify the destructivenes ...

.Earth, Planets and Space"> In 2019, AP Sensing was selected by

Energinet Energinet is the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas. It is an independent public enterprise owned by the Danish state under the Ministry of Climate and Energy. Energinet has some 1150 employees, ...

to monitor cables at the

Kriegers Flak ''Kriegers Flak'' is a reef located in the Baltic Sea, north of Rügen, south of Skåne with its west most point about 15 km east of Møn. It is named after the Danish naval officer Christian Krieger, who in 1840 mapped the Baltic Sea. The Dan ...

offshore wind farm using DTS units. In 2020,

Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ') or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. , it is the fourth- l ...

approved the use of AP Sensing's DFOS technology to detect leaks in oil pipelines.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
Fiber optics Companies of Germany Companies based in Baden-Württemberg 2007 establishments in Germany