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ESF News Thursday, September 15, 2005 Aloha Proof Module Design in High Gear The Aloha Deep Ocean Observatory is the first ocean observatory to attempt to utilize retired fiber-optic telecommunications cable to transfer data from the ocean floor to a researcher's office PC through the Internet. A researcher will be able to log into his/her experiment and retrieve real-time data or reconfigure their experiment as ocean conditions change. The utilization of COTS parts and systems is a critical design philosophy used by ESF engineers to ensure reliability, serviceability, and maintenance of the observatory. This design philosophy also provides a cost benefit over custom built systems for new fiber optic-cable deployments. Each major system of the observatory has a redundant counterpart to reduce the possibility of single point failure. There are a few concerned individuals that believe that the reuse of retired fiber-optic cable is a costly and obsolete data transmission medium. The design and deployment of the Aloha Proof Module will allow the engineers at ESF prove that cable reuse is not only cost effective, but also able to handle the bandwidth of data transmitted by a majority of experimenters. The Aloha Proof Module is an important step in the successful deployment of a functional ocean observatory system at Station Aloha. The Aloha Proof Module consists of a fiber-optic regenerator or repeater, muldex (multiplexer/demultiplexer), microprocessor module, hydrophone, and a Digiquartz ® pressure sensor.
Page Last Modified 02/15/2007 |
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