Deep learning and time series signal processing for bending detection in mining environment using optical fiber sensor

Abstract

Optical fiber sensors are widely used to monitor environmental disturbances that may trigger or affect mining landslides, a complex phenomenon that involves various factors and can cause severe damage. In this study, we propose a method to detect the curvature of a bent optical fiber, which affects the optical signals traveling through it, using deep learning and time series signal processing. We use a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) sensor and a single-mode fiber (SMF) cable to capture the interference signal caused by different bending angles. We apply a transformation random convolutional kernel (TRANCE) to reduce the signal and extract its mean and standard deviation as features. We train a dense neural network (DNN) with three hidden layers to classify the bending events into four categories: low, medium, high, and extreme. We evaluate our method on a dataset of 400 samples and achieve an average accuracy of 99% in the confusion matrix and the fifty times tenfold validation experiments. Our method outperforms other methods that use multimode fiber (MMF), speckle images, and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in terms of accuracy, speed, and generalization. Our method also has the advantages of using SMF, which enables integrated sensing and communication, and using 1D signals, which are easier to process than 2D images. Our method is suitable for high-speed signals containing information in dangerous environments.