Power Breakers for Control and Monitoring Subsea Cabled Observatory Instruments

Subsea cabled observatory is a multidisciplinary research platform, there are variety instruments connecting observatory, whose power consumption vary from a few watts to a few hundreds watts. Those instruments power supply status require to be carefully remotely controlled and monitored. The basic parameters include controlling instrument on and off, monitoring instrument power supply health status such as voltage, current and ground fault etc., those data are critical for both properly instrument operating and data quality control. Ocean networks Canada (ONC) is continuing to extend its NEPTUNE, VENUS and SMART OCEAN observatories and keep building new observatories. A compact generic power control and monitoring unit was designed and build to meet those requirements. The unit is small enough (120Lx75Wx15H mm) to fit inside most pressure house. This power breaker includes the following functions: •Power on/off •Voltage and current monitoring •Over/under voltage protection •Over current automatic shunt down •Ground fault monitoring •Soft start and Inrush current control •Physical isolation power supplies from instruments •External DC/DC convertor temperature monitoring and remote control •RS422/485 addressable for units in daisy chain It had been successfully used for variety projects such as ONC Smart Ocean project, STRAW A and B neutrino project, RCM regional circulation moorings, hydrophone Arrays. A customized junction boxes such as MISO project had been build base on this module.