Statistically-Guided Meta-Learning for Cross-Deployment Activity Recognition in Distributed Fiber-Optic Sensing

arXiv stat.ML / 4/28/2026

💬 OpinionIdeas & Deep AnalysisModels & Research

Key Points

  • The paper introduces DUPLE, a prototype-based meta-learning framework designed to improve distributed fiber-optic sensing (DFOS) activity recognition when moving across deployments.
  • It targets three practical challenges at new sites: strong cross-deployment domain shift, limited/unavailable labels, and insufficient coverage within classes even in source domains.
  • DUPLE combines complementary time- and frequency-domain cues by building multi-prototype class representations, then uses lightweight statistical guidance to estimate the reliability of each domain from raw signal statistics.
  • For each incoming query, a query-adaptive aggregation strategy selects and combines the most relevant prototypes, and experiments on two real cross-deployment benchmarks show consistent gains over strong deep learning and meta-learning baselines.
  • The approach produces more accurate and stable recognition specifically in label-scarce target deployments.

Abstract

Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS) is promising for long-range perimeter security, yet practical deployment faces three key obstacles: severe cross-deployment domain shift, scarce or unavailable labels at new sites, and limited within-class coverage even in source deployments. We propose DUPLE, a prototype-based meta-learning framework tailored for cross-deployment DFOS recognition. The core idea is to jointly exploit complementary time- and frequency-domain cues and adapt class representations to sample-specific statistics: (i) a dual-domain learner constructs multi-prototype class representations to cover intra-class heterogeneity; (ii) a lightweight statistical guidance mechanism estimates the reliability of each domain from raw signal statistics; and (iii) a query-adaptive aggregation strategy selects and combines the most relevant prototypes for each query. Extensive experiments on two real-world cross-deployment benchmarks demonstrate consistent improvements over strong deep learning and meta-learning baselines, achieving more accurate and stable recognition under label-scarce target deployments.