During his participation in the recent congress SMART Cables, Science and Society: Towards a deep-sea long-term monitoring of the global Ocean, our Project Director, Aitor García, presented the capabilities of the HDAS (High-Fidelity Distributed Acoustic Sensing) interrogator applied to subsea environments.

Unlike conventional DAS systems based on φ-OTDR, the chirped-pulse technology (CP-DAS) developed by Aragón Photonics guarantees constant sensitivity, linear response, and no blind spots along tens of kilometers of cable.

Through deployments on real subsea cables and using a single optical configuration, outstanding results were demonstrated, primarily in:

  • Advanced maritime surveillance: A unique capability to detect vessels both by their acoustic signature and by water mass displacement (pressure wave) at sub-hertz frequencies—ideal for buried cables or silent vessels.

In addition, key applications in other areas were also presented:

  • Environmental monitoring: Acoustic recording of marine fauna, such as whale vocalizations.
  • Early geophysical detection: Recording of earthquakes of varying magnitudes and tracking sea-level variations (tsunamis) with centimeter-level resolution.
  • Infrastructure security: Alerts for anchor impacts, fishing nets, or unauthorized activities near the cable route.

You can see all the tests, graphs, and detailed recordings in the full session recording available on YouTube, where Aragón Photonics’ presentation opens the event:

🔗 Watch the full presentation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9EmnFtz-dM