OptaSense® Distributed Acoustic and Seismic Sensing Performance for Multi-threat, Multi-environment Border Monitoring

Abstract

The OptaSense® Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology turns any cable with single-mode optical fiber into a very large and densely sampled acoustic/seismic sensor array, covering up to a 50-kilometer aperture per system with """"virtual"""" sensor separations as small as one eter. The system uses Rayleigh scattering from the mperfections in the fiber to return optical signals measuring local fiber strain from seismic, air and water acoustic disturbances. The scalable system architecture can provide border monitoring over long distances at low cost, high sensitivity, and high location accuracy. This paper presents system performance examples for detection, localization, and classification of multiple threats (e.g. digging and tunneling, personnel footsteps, gunshots, and aircraft) in a variety of environments, including snow cover.