Border protection

A border that reports itself

Continuous linear monitoring of a border strip along a fibre-optic cable: one already in the ground, or one laid together with the barrier. The cable works as a sensor along its whole length, detects zone breaches, vibration, footsteps and other acoustic and seismic signatures, locates the event and passes it to the command centre. Cover is round the clock and reaches sections no patrol can hold.

Fibre as the sensor

Distributed acoustic sensing

A laser sends pulses into the cable, the light backscatters off the fibre's natural imperfections, and the interrogator reads that return thousands of times a second. The cable stops being a link and becomes a linear geophone: every stretch of the route is its own measuring point, listening to the ground above it. The line is passive - not one powered device stands in the strip to be located, jammed or stolen - and it works on cable already laid or laid with the barrier.

Principle

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS)

Sampling

Thousands of readings per second

Reach

Up to 80 km from a point, in two 40 km sections

Power in the strip

None, the line is passive

Cable

Existing or newly laid, in the ground

Self-protection

Tampering with the cable is itself an event

Location resolution

not published

What the line hears

• Groups on foot

  A group entering the border strip and the buffer zone sounds different from an animal or from wind. The report carries a position on the route before the group reaches the barrier.

  Signature

  footsteps, group movement

  Report

  with a location on the section

• Tunnels and digging

  Digging travels through soil, not air, so a camera will not see it. Tools working below the surface leave vibration in the ground and the line reads it from the same cable.

  Phenomenon

  concealed earthworks

  Layer

  below ground level

• Attack on the barrier

  Cutting a span, drilling, sawing and dismantling structural elements, mechanical impact, ramming, explosion. Each of these events has an acoustic picture of its own.

  Classes

  cutting, drilling, ramming

  Response

  alarm at the moment of the event

• Vehicle movement

  A vehicle approaching the strip and unauthorised movement on service roads are heard in advance, including at night and in fog, when the optical channel is not working.

  Object

  wheeled vehicle

  Conditions

  night, fog, precipitation

What happens after the event

• Sensor fusion

  The fibre line, thermal cameras, radars and sensors on the barrier itself also work separately, but only together do they close the gaps. What one sensor does not hear, another sees.

  Layers

  ground, barrier, air

  Operation

  independent or combined

• Airborne reconnaissance

  An event on a section produces coordinates, so the aircraft flies to a point rather than in a direction. Radar adds the air layer to the same picture.

  Input

  coordinates from the line

  Output

  imagery from the scene

• Forces on the ground

  The response team drives to a point from the line rather than to the description in a call. Positions of one's own patrols, on foot and mounted, can be carried in the same picture.

  Response

  from the event, not from a call

  Patrols

  positions in one picture

• Console and sections

  Operation runs from a single console or split into sections assigned to individual posts. Planned work - barrier maintenance, road repair, tree clearance - suppresses alerts on its own section, so there are fewer false alarms. Events can be passed upward to higher-level systems.

  Operation

  central or by section

  Planned work

  alert suppression on a section