Trace: Seismic Human Activity
My team and I were finalists in the 2021 Nittany AI Challenge with our idea Trace.
We proposed a cost-efficient and high-resolution method of urban monitorying through the use of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) fiber optic technology. Available telecommunication fiber networks, which are widespread in “smart cities” like NYC and Singapore, can be cheaply converted into dense seismic sensor arrays that can detect surrounding ground vibrations. As a local example, we had access to data collected by the Penn State DAS Array, a 4km-long array snaking through campus and made up of thousands of sensors continuously recording. With our seismology and machine learning expertise, we intended to efficiently process and interpret the data into quantifiable outputs of human and vehicular activity.