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Several types of optical fibre sensors have been successfully developed into commercial products and a strong technology base has been realised to foster the development of new types of fibre sensors. In this talk, we will describe briefly the technical status of the field as of the first OFS which was held in 1983 and trace the evolution of the field (both components and concepts) and its commercialisation through the last decade. The component base developed for optical fibre sensors has found applications well beyond the sensor field and this will be examined. For example, single mode couplers developed for interferometric sensors are now being routinely used by the telecommunications industry. Low noise single mode laser studies conducted for high performance sensors also laid the foundation for many later noise studies of lasers for CATV, and single mode direct and coherent communication applications. The development of sources for fibre gyros led to the development of a new class of optical sources i.e. superluminescent diode and fibre lasers. The technology of interferometric sensor demodulation proceeded similar work for coherent communications and the pioneering studies in sensor multiplexing in its many forms has also been applied to CATV and FTTC applications. The successes by the fibre sensor community in the development of componentry however has not yet been matched with an equal success in commercialisation. Interferometric sensors such as the fibre gyro and intensity based sensors such as temperature, pressure, etc. have been successfblly marketed; however commercialisation in general has not met everyone's hopes or expectations. In this talk we will briefly also review the market growth projection made at the time of the first OFS and discuss what people project today.
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