Few-Shot Classification with Meta-Learning for Urban Infrastructure Monitoring Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing

This paper studies an advanced machine learning method, specifically few-shot classification with meta-learning, applied to distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) data. The study contributes two key aspects: (i) an investigation of different pre-processing methods for DAS data and (ii) the implementation of a neural network model based on meta-learning to learn a representation of the processed data. In the context of urban infrastructure monitoring, we develop a few-shot classification framework that classifies query samples with only a limited number of support samples. The model consists of an embedding network trained on a meta dataset for feature extraction and is followed by a classifier for performing few-shot classification. This research thoroughly explores three types of data pre-processing, that is, decomposed phase, power spectral density, and frequency energy band, as inputs to the neural network. Experimental results show the efficient learning capabilities of the embedding model when working with various pre-processed data, offering a range of pre-processing options. Furthermore, the results demonstrate outstanding few-shot classification performance across a large number of event classes, highlighting the framework’s potential for urban infrastructure monitoring applications.