The primary objective of layered settlement monitoring of deep soil is to obtain settlement data for both the soil and superstructure, enabling appropriate measures to be taken to ensure the structure’s safety and stability. Traditional deep soil monitoring technologies are either limited in the number of measurement points (e.g., fiber Bragg grating sensing technology) or exhibit low measurement accuracy (e.g., distributed fiber optic sensing technology). This study proposes a layered settlement monitoring technique for deep soil based on the ultra-weak fiber Bragg grating sensors. First, ultra-weak fiber Bragg grating strain sensors packaged by fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) were developed, and experimental research on the sensors’ sensing and directional recognition characteristics was conducted. Subsequently, the sensors were deployed for ground subsidence monitoring in Gaoyang County, China, with investigations conducted on sensor installation techniques and long-term measurement data. Experimental and engineering test results demonstrate that the strain and temperature sensing coefficients of the sensors are 1.22 pm/με and 17.06 pm/°C, respectively. Sensors incorporating dual ultra-weak fiber Bragg grating arrays can simultaneously detect both vertical and lateral soil displacement. Long-term monitoring data effectively reflects subsidence changes in the Gaoyang region.

Subgrade deformation under load is accumulated from the local compressive strain of each layer. Solely relying on the overall settlement monitoring at the top surface makes it difficult to reveal the internal strain distribution and the evolutionary characteristics of early damage. Therefore, acquiring the local compressive strain field along the depth direction is of great engineering significance for subgrade condition assessment and safety early warning. In this paper, a vertically installed FBG sensor (VI-FBG) with GFRP packaging suitable for layered strain measurement of subgrade is developed. The effectiveness of the sensor is verified by direct compression tests and compressive strain tests with the sensor embedded in concrete. Furthermore, the sensor was buried in the subgrade of a high-speed railway to carry out strain monitoring. The test results show that the sensor has favorable sensing performance, with a strain sensitivity of 1.2 pm/με and a temperature sensitivity of 16.84 pm/°C. The measured compressive strain of concrete is in good agreement with the theoretical value, and the relative error is less than 8%. The field monitoring data can truly reflect the vertical compressive strain during subgrade filling. The measured time-history curve exhibits good consistency with the displacement time-history curve obtained by the adjacent FBG settlement sensor. This study verifies that the sensor is applicable to the monitoring of local vertical compressive deformation of subgrade, and its GFRP encapsulation endows it with good engineering applicability.