Detection and Localization of Stationary Weights Hanging on Aerial Telecommunication Field Fibers using Distributed Acoustic Sensing

Abstract

For the first time to our knowledge, a stationary weight hanging on an operational aerial telecommunication field fiber was detected and localized using only ambient data collected by a φ-DAS system. Although stationary weights do not create temporally varying signals, and hence cannot be observed directly from the DAS traces, the existence and the location of the additional weights were revealed by the operational modal analysis of the aerial fiber structure.

Distributed fiber optic sensing over readily available telecom fiber networks

“…Once the ambient waterfall data is analyzed and transformed into an SVD map, then the static weight location, in other words the location where the frequency characteristics of the fiber has changed, can be easily detected. A detailed calculation of the SVD map can be found in Reference [13]. Figure 6.…”