Design, Characterization, and Test of a Versatile Single-Mode Power-Over-Fiber and Communication System for Seafloor Observatories

A power-over-fiber (PoF) and communication system for extending a cabled seafloor observatory is demonstrated in this contribution. The system allows the cabled seafloor observatory to be linked, through a single optical fiber, to a sensor node located 8 km away. The PoF system is based on an optical architecture in which power and data propagate simultaneously on the same single-mode fiber. The Raman scattering effect is exploited to amplify the optical data signals and leads to the minimization of the sensor node power consumption. Versatile low power electronic interfaces have been developed to ensure compatibility with a wide range of marine sensors. A low-consumption field-programmable gate array and an energy-efficient microcontroller are used to develop the electronic interfaces. For an electrical input power of 31 W, up to 190 mW is recovered at the sensor node while a data bitrate of up to 3.6 Mb/s is achieved. The PoF system has been tested and validated for turbidity and acoustic measurement applications. The current study focuses on the electronic development and the validation of the PoF system.