Cabled Observatory Systems - OceanWorks International

OceanWorks has developed designs and hardware to support the installation and operation of underwater cabled observatory systems. This includes a range of hardware and interfaces that allow scientists to select from a shopping list of features and to configure the hardware to match the scientific experiment objectives.

Cabled Observatory System hardware options include:

NODE Assembly - power, control, monitoring and distribution centre
ROV Wet Mate Connectors - science package plug in and exchange of multiple ports with optical, Ethernet and copper conductors
SIIM - Science Instrument Interface Modules -these junction boxes all multiple science instruments to plug into each node port
MUXA - Science Instrument Multiplex Adapters - expand connectivity and data transfer capability
Data Loggers - Modular instrument recording and processing
Vertical Profiling System - sea floor based system allows continuous sampling of the water column
General Instrument Integration and Testing - OceanWorks has completed detailed engineering and design for a number of custom tools used for data collection. These include bottom samplers, fish collectors and other systems deployed from the surface or mounted on ROV and manned submersibles

Project VENUS (Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea) officially became Canada's, perhaps the world's, most advanced interactive seafloor observatory to go "on-line" February 25, 2006. VENUS is pioneering the use of fibre-optic technology to open the bottom of the sea to live, 24 hour a day, data acquisition for scientists at the University of Victoria (UVic) and around the world.

VENUS collects a wide variety of data including video images and acoustic information. Data is transmitted to the shore-based data recording and distribution centre via fibre-optic cable.

The sub sea node is the heart of the cabled observatory system. Designed and built by OceanWorks International, the sophisticated node and related control/network system functions as the distribution centre for eight Scientific Instrument Interface Modules (SIIM). Each SIIM can support up to 6 instrumentation packages that can be placed on the seafloor in areas of high scientific interest. A Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) is used to maintain equipment and to plug in and exchange instrument packages, allowing for a variety of experiments during the 25 year life of the system.

For more information on the VENUS project visit www.venus.uvic.ca.

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