Design and Implementation of an Underwater Information Acquisition System Prototype Based on Optical Fiber Communication

Ocean observation plays an important role in many areas, such as marine scientific research, environmental expedition, and resource exploitation. Traditional observation generally acquires periodical marine information and lacks real-time performances. To realize underwater observation of multi-information in real-time, an information acquisition system is designed in this study based on optical fiber communication. A multichannel interface between the diverse sensors and the slave computer is designed. It shields discrepancies of different sensor data and allows collecting information of various types, including conductivity, temperature, depth (CTD), attitudes, and images. At the same time, the full communication link is designed by constructing an optical fiber channel in collaboration with RS485 and USB. It provides a higher-rate link for real-time data transmission from underwater to overwater. Then, software procedures are, respectively, developed for the slave computer and the master computer based on the designed communication protocol. Additionally, a PC-based user interface is designed to realize data receipt, file saving, information display, and image restoration. Finally, an acquisition prototype is developed, and an underwater experiment is conducted to evaluate its performance. The results show that the underwater CTD, attitudes, and images can be collected and transmitted in real time. From its higher transmission rate and lower packet loss rate, the accuracy and the stability of the prototype are verified. The implementation of the acquisition prototype follows the trends of laying and networking submarine optical fiber cables. Therefore, its application can be expanded for ocean observation in information collecting, transmitting, and processing.