Preliminary assessment of ship detection and trajectory evaluation using distributed acoustic sensing on an optical fiber telecom cable

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a recent instrumental approach allowing the conversion of fiber-optic cables into dense arrays of acoustic sensors. This technology is attractive in marine environments where instrumentation is difficult to implement. A promising application is the monitoring of environmental and anthropic noise, leveraging existing telecommunication cables on the seafloor. We assess the ability of DAS to monitor such noise using a 41.5 km-long cable offshore of Toulon, France, focusing on a known and localized source. We analyze the noise emitted by the same tanker cruising above the cable, first 5.8 km offshore in 85 m deep bathymetry, and then 20 km offshore, where the seafloor is at a depth of 2000 m. The spectral analysis, the Doppler shift, and the apparent velocity of the acoustic waves striking the fiber allow us to separate the ship radiated noise from other noise. At 85 m water depth, the signal-to-noise ratio is high, and the trajectory of the boat is recovered with beamforming analysis. At 2000 m water depth, although the acoustic signal of the ship is more attenuated, signals below 50 Hz are detected. These results confirm the potential of DAS applied to seafloor cables for remote monitoring of acoustic noise even at intermediate depth.