Method of using crowd-sourced echo location pings to detect fiber locations using distributed acoustic sensing

A method for determining a location of an optical fiber, the method comprising:

• receiving, at a computing device via an optical detector optically coupled to an optical fiber, a reflected light signal having one or more properties, wherein the reflected light signal corresponds to a transmitted light signal via the optical fiber, and wherein at least a portion of the light signal is reflected due to an acoustic signal;
• analyzing, by the computing device, the one or more properties of the reflected light signal to identify one or more properties of the acoustic signal;
• comparing, by the computing device, the one or more properties of the acoustic signal to sounds transmitted by vehicles at known locations to identify a vehicle that transmitted the acoustic signal;
• and
• determining, by the computing device, a location of the optical fiber based on a known location of the identified vehicle.

A method for transmitting an acoustic signal to determine a location of an optical fiber, the method comprising:

• transmitting, by a computing device in a vehicle, an acoustic signal having one or more properties that identify the vehicle;
• determining, by the computing device, a location of the vehicle when the acoustic signal is transmitted;
• and
• transmitting, by the computing device, an indication of the location of the vehicle to a server device,
• wherein the acoustic signal reflects at least a portion of a light signal transmitted via an optical fiber for the server device to determine the location of the optical fiber based on the location of the vehicle according to one or more properties of the received portion of the light signal corresponding to the one or more properties of the acoustic signal that identify the vehicle.