Tracking Moving Ships Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing Data

Accurate ship detection and tracking has become increasingly vital due to the growth of global maritime trade and complex oceanic activities. Passive acoustic or seismic-based tracking methods, though proven effective, require extensive deployment of sensors, posing challenges in terms of range and accuracy. The recently developed Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology offers a dense sampling, cost-effective and real-time solution by using optical fiber cables for wide-area vibration monitoring. This study investigates DAS technology for ship tracking by analyzing the Doppler shift characteristics of ship-generated wavefields. First, ships were detected by the seismic energy maps in spatial and spectral domains. Utilizing the Fourier Synchrosqueezing Transform (FSST), the Doppler shift characteristics of ship signals are examined, and ship trajectories are determined. The inverted trajectory of a ship aligns closely with the actual GPS-based trajectory, thereby validating the effectiveness and accuracy of our approach. These results demonstrate the potential of DAS for reliable ship detection and tracking, providing a robust and reliable tool for maritime surveillance and monitoring in future.