The Poseidon Cyprus Ocean Observing Network is the world’s first truly hybrid subsea cable system, providing fully capable telecommunications and oceanographic services on the same system, each with an independent power supply, constant current for the telecommunications and Constant Voltage Power Feed Equipment (CVPFE) for the Oceanographic sensors.
Ocean Specialists, Inc’s (OSI) customer required that the hybrid subsea cable system support both traditional repeatered telecommunications and a system of oceanographic sensing platforms (nodes) each with a variety of seismometer, tsunami, and ocean science sensors. While the traditional telecommunications cable and repeaters use commercially available constant current power supplies, the suite of subsea sensors all operate on constant voltage power supply. As subsea power conversion was not an option, the only solution was to feed both constant current and constant voltage power from the shore stations.
The cable system supplier developed and qualified the world’s first dual conductor telecommunication cable, while OSI designed, developed and qualified the only constant voltage power feed equipment (CVPFE) rated for the 800 km system length and the load requirements of the multiple sensor nodes that are installed on and powered from the telecommunications cable.