{
  "abstract": "Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) systems based on ϕ-OTDR are increasingly used for real-time infrastructure monitoring, but their performance is limited by coherent and polarization fading, which create signal blind spots along the fiber. This study evaluates two coherent-detection DAS architectures-with and without polarization diversity-together with the influence of optical cable type and ground-coupling method, in an operational railway environment. Field experiments were conducted along a 40 km SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français) railway line using train passages as excitation sources, complemented by controlled sledgehammer tap tests on a 500 m calibration platform connecting four fiber configurations (telecom vs. sensing cables, buried vs. duct-installed). Signal amplitude, differential phase, and phase Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) were used to quantify sensing performance. Polarization diversity reduced the fraction of faded signals below -40 dB from approximately ≈8.4% to ≈1% of the fiber length and improved the Phase Stability Index (PSI) from ≈6 dB to ≈10 dB at 20 km, significantly mitigating polarization-induced signal dropouts across the 40 km span. Among the tested cables, the tight-buffered sensing fiber directly buried in the ground consistently provided the strongest and most stable response, while telecom fiber installed in a High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) duct showed the weakest coupling. These results demonstrate that combining polarization-diversity detection with an optimized fiber-cable coupling strategy substantially improves the robustness of DAS for railway infrastructure monitoring",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 10,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Alex Chedid"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ali Kabalan"
    },
    {
      "name": "José Grand"
    },
    {
      "name": "Tarik Hammi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Gabriel Papaiz Garbini"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ianis Gaudot"
    },
    {
      "name": "Adnand Bitri"
    },
    {
      "name": "François Bretaudeau"
    },
    {
      "name": "Elie Awwad"
    },
    {
      "name": "Renaud Gabet"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/ce5dnqc66nc5v.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1117/12.3062236.",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13708854/?tool=EBI",
  "id": "ce5dnqc66nc5v",
  "issns": [
    "1424-8220"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://hal.science/hal-05841114v1",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "hal",
      "0.sdu"
    ],
    [
      "hal",
      "1.sdu.stu"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://hal.science/hal-05841114/document",
  "pmcid": "PMC13708854",
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-01",
  "publisher": "MDPI",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/ce5dnqc66nc5v.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:18:02Z",
      "native_id": "hal-05841114",
      "source": "hal",
      "url": "https://hal.science/hal-05841114v1"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:21:25Z",
      "native_id": "PMC:PMC13708854",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13708854"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "hal:0.sdu",
      "subfield": "general"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Evaluation of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) Systems with Polarization Diversity for Railway Infrastructure: Effects of Fiber Type and Installation Conditions on System Performance",
  "title_text": "Evaluation of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) Systems with Polarization Diversity for Railway Infrastructure: Effects of Fiber Type and Installation Conditions on System Performance",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:21:25Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/ce5dnqc66nc5v",
  "venue": "Sensors",
  "versions": []
}