NEC Laboratories America

Projects | Physics-Informed Sensing AI

Physics-Informed Sensing AI

Fiber sensing can detect physical parameters such as phase and polarization changes in optical signals. This optical data needs to be interpreted into human-understandable events and scene information for real-world applications.

Our research and development focus on innovative applied machine learning and signal processing algorithms that convert low-level sensory inputs into high-level information, providing solutions for real-world sensing applications in safety, security, smart city, infrastructure health monitoring, power & energy industry, and more. We have developed multiple AI prototypes and high-performance computation platforms for real-time perception of the physical world and validated them through numerous world- and industry-first field trials.

Publication Tags: physics informed, fiber sensing

Physics-Informed Sensing AI Project

Fiber Sensing and Physics Informed Publications

Turning Every Telecom Cable into a City-Wide Sensor Network

Verizon and NEC Laboratories America turned live telecom fiber into a city-wide sensing network. By repurposing existing optical infrastructure, the system detects vibrations along fiber routes, cutting cable damage incidents and improving response times. The approach also enables AI models that adapt

Event Classification by Physics-Informed Inpainting for Distributed Multichannel Acoustic Sensor with Partially Degraded Channels

Distributed multichannel acoustic sensing (DMAS) enables large-scale sound event classification (SEC), but performance drops when many channels are degraded and when sensor layouts at test time differ from training layouts. We propose a learning-free, physics-informed inpainting frontend based on reverse

Advances in Fiber Sensing

In this talk, we will present recent technological advances in fiber sensing applications with long monitoring distances orextending multiple fiber spans. In forward-transmission-based sensing, adaptive beamforming techniques weredemonstrated to achieve multi-event vibration sensing in environments with

Energy-based Generative Models for Distributed Acoustic Sensing Event Classification in Telecom Networks

Distributed fiber-optic sensing combined with machine learning enables continuous monitoring of telecom infrastructure. We employ generative modeling for event classification, supporting semi­ supervised learning, uncertainty calibration, and noise resilience. Our approach offers a scalable, data-efficient

Fiber sensing in IOWN Global Forum

Fiber sensing function was introduced in 2020 as one of the key technology features for the OpenAPN (all photonics network) developed by IOWN GF (Innovative Optical and Wireless NetworkGlobal Forum) in 2020.To our best knowledge, IOWN GF is the first global standard developmentorganization or technology

Robust Phase Noise Power Spectral Density Estimation Using Multi-Laser Interferometry

We jointly estimate the phase noise power spectral densities of multiple lasers using interferometry between different combinations of laser pairs. We demonstrate a beat-frequency trackingmethod that allows under-sampling of interferometric products without phase jumps.

First City-Scale Deployment of DASs with Satellite Imagery and AI for Live Telecom Infrastructure Management

We demonstrate real-time fiber risk assessment and dynamic network routing in live metro networks using deployed DASs, satellite imagery, and large-scale AI, achieving the first significantreduction in fiber failures in four years

Phase-noise Tolerant Per-span Phase and Polarization Sensing

Subsea cables include a supervisory system that monitors the health of the amplifier pumps and fiber loss on per span basis. In some of the cables, the monitoring is achieved optically and passively using high-loss loop back paths and wavelength selective reflectors. By sending monitoring pulses through

Strain Accumulation Rate in Fiber Spools in the Presence of Ambient Acoustic Noise in Laser Phase Interferometry

We investigate the growth rate of phase power spectral density in fiber spools in the presence of ambient acoustic noise, observing a complex interplay between spool geometry, shielding effects, and phase cancellation at high acoustic frequencies.

Field Tests of AI-Driven Road Deformation Detection Leveraging Ambient Noise over Deployed Fiber Networks

This study demonstrates an AI-driven method for detecting road deformations using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) over existing telecom fiber networks. Utilizingambient traffic noise, it enables real-time, long-term, and scalable monitoring for road safety.

Dual Privacy Protection for Distributed Fiber Sensing with Disaggregated Inference and Fine-tuning of Memory-Augmented Networks

We propose a memory-augmented model architecture with disaggregated computation infrastructure for fiber sensing event recognition. By leveraging geo-distributed computingresources in optical networks, this approach empowers end-users to customize models while ensuring dual privacy protection.

Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing for Fault Localization Caused by Fallen Tree Using Physics-informed ResNet

Falling trees or their limbs can cause power lines to break or sag, sometimes resulting in devastating wildfires. Conventional protections such as circuit breakers, overcurrent relays and automatic circuit reclosers may clear short circuits caused by tree contact, but they may not detect cases where

Field Trial of Coexistence and Simultaneous Switching of Real-Time Fiber Sensing and Coherent 400 GbE in a Dense Urban Environment

Recent advances in optical fiber sensing have enabled telecom network operators to monitor their fiber infrastructure while generating new revenue in various application scenarios, including data center interconnect, public safety, smart cities, and seismic monitoring. However, given the high utilization

Fast WDM Provisioning With Minimum Probe Signals: The First Field Experiments For DC Exchanges

There are increasing requirements for data center interconnection (DCI) services, which use fiber to connect any DC distributed in a metro area and quickly establish high-capacity optical paths between cloud services and mobile edge computing and the users. In such networks, coherent transceivers with

First Field Demonstration of Automatic WDM Optical Path Provisioning over Alien Access Links for Data Center Exchange

We demonstrated under six minutes automatic provisioning of optical paths over field- deployed alien access links and WDM carrier links using commercial-grade ROADMs, whitebox mux-ponders, and multi-vendor transceivers. With channel probing, transfer learning, and Gaussian noise model, we achieved an

Improvement of Resilience of Submarine Networks Based on Fiber Sensing

Simultaneous phase and polarization sensing with span length resolution using the supervisory path is demonstrated. It is shown that by measuring polarization rotation matrix of the return paths, instead of monitoring only the state of polarization, location of the polarization disturbance can be determined

Polarization Sensing Using Polarization Rotation Matrix Eigenvalue Method

Polarization-based, multi-span sensing over a link with reflection-back circuits is demonstrated experimentally. By measuring rotation matrices instead of just monitoring polarization, a 35 dB extinction in localization is achieved regardless of the disturbance magnitude.

Field Trial of Coexistence and Simultaneous Switching of Real-time Fiber Sensing and 400GbE Supporting DCI and 5G Mobile Services

Coexistence of real-time constant-amplitude distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) and 400GbE signals is verified by field trial over metro fibers, demonstrating no QoT impact during co-propagation and supporting preemptive DAS-informed optical path switching before link failure

Ambient Noise based Weakly Supervised Manhole Localization Methods over Deployed Fiber Networks

We present a manhole localization method based on distributed fiber optic sensing and weakly supervised machine learning techniques. For the first time to our knowledge, ambient environment data is used for underground cable mapping with the promise of enhancing operational efficiency and reducing field

Simultaneous Sensing and Communication in Optical Fibers

We explore two fiber sensing methods which enables coexistence with data transmission on DWDM fiber networks. Vibration detection and localization can be achieved by extracting optical phase from modified coherent transponders. Frequency-diverse chirped-pulse DAS with all-Raman amplification can improve

Detection and Localization of Stationary Weights Hanging on Aerial Telecommunication Fibers using Distributed Acoustic Sensing

For the first time to our knowledge, a stationary weight hanging on an operational aerial telecommunication field fiber was detected and localized using only ambient data collected by a φ-DAS system. Although stationary weights do not create temporally varying signals, and hence cannot be observed directly

First Field Trial of Monitoring Vehicle Traffic on Multiple Routes by Using Photonic Switch and Distributed Fiber Optics Sensing System on Standard Telecom Networks

We demonstrated for the first time that motor vehicle traffic and road capacity on multiple fiber routes can be monitored by using a distributed-fiber-optics-sensing system with a photonic switch on in-service telecom fiber cables.

Bipolar Cyclic Linear Coding for Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis

We demonstrate, for the first time, that cyclic linear pulse coding can be bipolar for BOTDA sensors, breaking the unipolar limitation of linear coding techniques and elevating the coding gain for a given code length.

Optical Fiber Sensing Technology Visualizing the Real World via Network Infrastructures – AI technologies for traffic monitoring

Optical fibers have a sensing function that captures environmental changes around the fiber cable. According to the recent technology evolution of optical transmission and AI, the application of the fiber sensing has expanded and visualization accuracy has improved. We have proposed to monitor the traffic

Static Weight Detection and Localization on Aerial Fiber Cables using Distributed Acoustic Sensing

We demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge, the detection and localization of a static weight on an aerial cable by using frequency domain decomposition analysis of ambient vibrations detected by a φ-DAS system.

Field Trial of Abnormal Activity Detection and Threat Level Assessment with Fiber Optic Sensing for Telecom Infrastructure Protection

We report the field trial results of monitoring abnormal activities near deployed cable with fiber-optic-sensing technology for cable protection. Detection and position determination of abnormal events and evaluating the threat to the cable is realized.

Vehicle Run-Off-Road Event Automatic Detection by Fiber Sensing Technology

We demonstrate a new application of fiber-optic-sensing and machine learning techniques for vehicle run-off-road events detection to enhance roadway safety and efficiency. The proposed approach achieves high accuracy in a testbed under various experimental conditions.

Field Trial of Vibration Detection and Localization using Coherent Telecom Transponders over 380-km Link

We demonstrate vibration detection and localization based on extracting optical phase from the DSP elements of a coherent receiver in bidirectional WDM transmission of 200-Gb/s DP-16QAM over 380 km of installed field fiber.