Automatic Monitoring of Rock-Slope Failures Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing and Semi-Supervised Learning

Abstract

Effective use of the wealth of information provided by Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) for mass movement monitoring remains a challenge. We propose a semi-supervised neural network tailored to screen DAS data related to a series of rock collapses leading to a major failure of approximately 1.2 million (Formula presented.) on 15 June 2023 in Brienz, Eastern Switzerland. Besides DAS, the dataset from 16 May to 30 June 2023 includes Doppler radar data for partially ground-truth labeling. The proposed algorithm is capable of distinguishing between rock-slope failures and background noise, including road and train traffic, with a detection precision of over (Formula presented.). It identifies hundreds of precursory failures and shows sustained detection hours before and during the major collapse. Event size and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are the key performance dependencies. As a critical part of our algorithm operates unsupervised, we suggest that it is suitable for general monitoring of natural hazards.