The Network as a Sensor concept involves using information from networked devices and systems to gain insights into the state, performance, or security of the network itself or the environment it serves.
We perform the availability analysis for various reliable distributed fiber optic sensor placement schemes in the circumstances of multiple failures. The study can help the network carriers to select the optimal protection scheme for their network sensing services, considering both service availability and hardware cost.
Recently, the distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) techniques have advanced rapidly. There emerges various types of DFOS sensors that can monitor physical parameters such as temperature, strain, and vibration. With these DFOS sensors deployed, the telecom networks are capable of offering additional services beyond communications, such as monitoring road traffic condition, monitoring utility pole health, monitoring city noise and accident, thus evolving to a new paradigm of Infrastructure-as-a-Sensor (IaaSr) or Network-as-a-Sensor (NaaSr). When telecom network carriers upgrade their infrastructures with DFOS sensors to provide such IaaSr/NaaSr services, there will arise a series of critical challenges: (1) where to place the DFOS sensors, and (2) how to provision the DFOS sensing fiber routes to cover the whole network infrastructures with the minimum number of DFOS sensors? We name this as the DFOS placement problem. In this paper, we prove that the DFOS placement problem is an NP-hard problem, and we analyze the upper bound of the number of DFOS sensors used. To facilitate the optimal solution, we formulate the DFOS placement problem with an Integer Linear Programming model that aims at minimizing the number of DFOS sensors used. Furthermore, we propose a cost-efficient heuristic solution, called Explore-and-Pick (EnP), which can achieve a close-to-optimal performance in a fast manner. We analyze the approximation ratio and the computational complexity of the proposed EnP algorithm. In addition, we conduct comprehensive simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed solutions. Simulation results show that the EnP algorithm can outperform the baseline algorithm by 16% in average and 26% at best, and it achieves a performance that is close to the optimal result obtained by ILP.
We propose an efficient approach for placing distributed fiber optic sensors (DFOS) with concurrent sensing capability. It consumes 5.7% to 9.5% fewer sensors than that using DFOS without concurrent sensing, for covering the same network.
Empowered by the rapid advancement of fiber optic sensing techniques in recent years, network carriers are able to upgrade their network infrastructure beyond the basic communication services with extra sensing applications and services (e.g., monitoring traffic and road condition, leakage detection, etc.), thus evolving to a new era of Infrastructure-as-a-Sensor (IaaSr) or Network-as-a-Sensor (NaaSr). When network carriers upgrade their network infrastructures with distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) technique to provide IaaSr services, there will arise a critical challenge: how to provide survivable (or reliable) IaaSr services against network failures (e.g., fiber cut). In this work, for the first time, we investigate the problem of survivable DFOS placement against single link failure. More specifically, we study where to place the primary and backup sensors and how to assign the primary and backup fiber sensing routes, with the objective of minimizing the number of sensors used. We formulate the problem using Integer Linear Programming (ILP) to facilitate the optimal solution. In addition, we propose a set of efficient heuristic algorithms to solve the problem in a fast manner. In particular, the proposed Shared-one algorithm provides a cost-efficient shared protection, through a one-step global optimization of the assignment of primary and backup DFOS placement. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed solutions. We find out that Shared-one can achieve a close-to-optimal performance, compared to the ILP optimal results, while outperforming the other heuristic solutions with an average performance improvement by at least 16%.
We are the first to investigate a novel problem, called distributed fiber optic sensor placement, in the context of Infrastructure-as-a-Sensor. We propose an ILP-based optimal solution and a close-to-optimal heuristic solution, both of which aim at minimizing the cost of sensors.
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