Patent ID: 11867539
Assignee: FIBER SENSE LIMITED
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 19:
20. An acoustic system for providing spatial and temporal classification of a range of different types of sound producing targets in a geographical area, the acoustic system including:
an optical signal transmitter arrangement for repeatedly transmitting, at multiple instants, interrogating optical signals into one or more of a plurality of optical fibres distributed across the geographical area and forming at least part of an installed fibre-optic communications network, wherein the installed fibre-optic communications network includes the plurality of optical fibres, and segments of the one or more of plurality of the optical fibres create a plurality of virtual dedicated sensing networks;
an optical signal detector arrangement for receiving, during an observation period following each of the multiple instants, returning optical signals scattered in a distributed manner over distance along the one or more of the plurality of optical fibres, the scattering influenced by acoustic disturbances caused by the sound producing targets within the observation period; and
a processing unit for demodulating acoustic data from the optical signals, processing the acoustic data, and classifying the acoustic data in accordance with target classes or types to generate a plurality of datasets including classification, temporal and location-related data;
wherein the processing unit is configured to monitor a plurality of different footprints in the geographic area, each footprint comprising at least one virtual dedicated sensing network.