Feasibility Study on Long-term Continuous Monitoring from Seafloor with Underwater Cable Network

Seafloor observation system using the underwater telecommunication cable is one of the most reliable ways to secure high-speed data transmission and continuous power feeding to underwater devices. In this paper a new scientific submarine cable system will be presented that were proposed by the technical committee organized by IEEE OES (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Oceanic Engineering Society) Japan Chapter. The proposed scientific cable network will have the following feature. (1) mesh-like cable network configuration covering vast research area, (2) more than 3,000km total cable length, (3) deployable up to 6,000m water depth, (4) over 66 observation nodes with 50km intervals, (5) exchangeability of sensors, (6) system extensibility. This paper will also describe the role of the scientific submarine cable-network and its historical background.