Fiber Coverage, Acoustic Range, Warning Time, Localization, AI Detection, AIS Association, Data Throughput & Radar-Equivalent Cost

Subsea Fiber DAS Dark-Ship Detection, Coastal Coverage & Radar Replacement Tool

Put the eight numbers behind a Distributed Acoustic Sensing surveillance decision onto one screen. Convert existing subsea fiber into monitored corridor length and area, derive detection range from a site-calibrated acoustic SNR model, calculate vessel warning time, combine channel and localization uncertainty, estimate dark-vessel detection and false-alert workload, size DAS channels and raw data, compare interrogator count with coastal radar sites, and screen whether DAS could replace another radar in a cable-aligned mission or is better used as a hybrid sensor.

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Surveillance Mission

Define the corridor DAS is being asked to protect. This keeps the tool from comparing a long, narrow cable sensor with a wide-area radar only by square kilometers.

km.
km to either side.
%.
minutes.
m.
alerts/day.

Existing Subsea Fiber

km.
% of physical route.
% after poor coupling, route overlap, insensitive cable sections and geometry.
% for the defined vessel class / traffic mix.
%.
m along cable. Use a consistent measured error statistic from the pilot.

Advanced Cable Segment Register

Long links are rarely uniform. Enter segment-level length, measured detection range, detection probability, localization error, uptime and expected traffic weight. The tool normalizes traffic weights automatically.

Segment Length km Range km Pd % Loc. error m Uptime % Traffic weight

Detection Range - Measured or Calibrated Acoustic SNR

km from fiber. Use a defensible vessel-class / environmental percentile, not a best-ever detection.
km.
dB in the chosen DAS spectral feature / processing chain.
SNR loss term uses 10n log10(r/r0). Calibrate locally.
dB/km effective acoustic + seabed attenuation term.
dB. Negative = worse coupling / higher noise; positive = better local sensitivity.
dB. Must be calibrated to the actual detector / ML operating point.

Vessel Geometry, Warning Time & AIS Association

knots.
degrees. 90° = perpendicular crossing; lower angle = more parallel.
seconds.
seconds after detection dwell.
m.
m for association gating.
seconds since last reliable position used for matching.
× combined engineering uncertainty screen.

Sensor Density, DAS Data & Compute

m.
m. Gauge length influences spatial averaging and frequency response.
samples/second/channel.
days.
1 = raw; 4 = retained dataset is one-quarter raw size.
km per interrogator for the selected hardware / fiber loss budget.

Detection Operations & Dark-Ship Workload

per day through the monitored mission corridor.
% of relevant transits. Use local history / intelligence, not a generic global assumption.
alerts/day. Do not convert an event-level research false-trigger rate directly into this value.
minutes.

Coastal Radar Comparison & Economics

Radar and DAS do not have the same geometry. Radar is wide-area electromagnetic coverage; DAS is a passive linear acoustic aperture tied to cable location. The comparison below is mission-corridor and cost oriented, not a claim of sensor equivalence.

nautical miles.
degrees.
% reduction in effective site spacing along the corridor.
%.
%.
m representative mission value.
alerts/day after track filtering.
Example placeholder. Replace with supplier / project data.
Example placeholder.
years.
%.

Pilot / Integration Readiness

Surveillance investment screening only: This tool is not a sonar equation, classified threat model, hydroacoustic propagation study, fiber-optic link budget, lawful-intercept authorization, radar performance guarantee, C2 certification or operational replacement approval. DAS sensitivity varies with cable construction, burial, seabed, gauge length, interrogator settings, acoustic frequency, vessel machinery / propeller signature, environmental noise, range and cable orientation. A site-specific pilot should determine the actual detection range, probability of detection, localization error and false-alert rate.
Research basis: Recent full-scale and operational-cable research has demonstrated vessel detection, localization and AIS-silent candidate identification with subsea Distributed Acoustic Sensing. The studies also show why performance cannot be represented by one universal DAS range: response changes with cable sensitivity, background noise, distance, vessel signature, gauge length, acquisition settings and processing method. Use published results as pilot benchmarks only and replace them with local measurements before procurement or radar-substitution decisions.
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