Precision traffic monitoring: Leveraging distributed acoustic sensing and deep neural networks

Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) has recently emerged as a promising technology for traffic monitoring. It transforms standard fiber-optic telecommunication cables into an array of vibration sensors capable of capturing vehicle-induced subsurface deformation with high spatio-temporal resolution. In this study, we propose a deep learning framework for the detection and velocity estimation of traffic flow. Our neural network based model yields accurate and well-resolved vehicle localization and speed tracking, outperforming off-the-shelf Dynamic Time Warping based solutions while achieving an order of magnitude faster processing time. A multi-day comparison with dedicated sensors installed along an urban highway shows a strong correlation, even under dense traffic conditions.