The Implementation of the NEPTUNE Canada Backbone Network

Developed over the course of more than six years, the NEPTUNE Canada network being implemented by University of Victoria (UVic) with funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund will be the first ocean observatory to link a wide variety of deepwater science instruments with the global Internet. The development of NEPTUNE Canada poses many challenges. The network must deliver high bandwidth and high power, while being manageable and reliable; the entire system, from instruments on the seabed to access points for science users and the public, must be designed to support continuous collection and real time distribution of time series data Many innovations related to the wet plant were needed to meet these requirements. The design selected required, amongst other things, the qualification of submarine repeaters and branching units capable of managing the higher currents; adaptation of terrestrial Ethernet switches and transmission equipment for installation in underwater housings; development of a 10 kV to 400 V DC-DC converter in an underwater housing capable of supplying 10 kW; design and manufacture of a distribution system, including junction boxes and extensions, to cost-effectively and reliably connect instruments to the network; and outfitting and upgrading of a shore station to provide reliable power and communications from the outside world. Some of these developments have been challenging, others straightforward. All of them have provided valuable experience, both for the NEPTUNE Canada team, UVic and Alcatel-Lucent, and for anyone wishing to implement or use a cabled observatory. The NEPTUNE Canada project is well under way. It received funding in January 2004; a contract with Alcatel-Lucent was entered in October 2005; cable manufacture was completed in early 2007 and the backbone cable ring will be installed in summer 2007. The backbone ring includes repeaters, branching units and spur cables, as well as the shore landings and the ploughed sections. A report on the current project status, including the outcome of the summer 2007 work, will be presented, and the experience gained during that installation will be discussed. This paper will also provide insight as to how NEPTUNE Canada and its contractor, Alcatel-Lucent, have addressed the development of this equipment. Policies will be discussed, with particular examples of the effect of these policies on engineering, instrument selection and system architecture decisions. Details of engineering solutions, and their implications to both UVic as the owner and to scientists and the general public as users, will be provided and discussed.