Live-View Camera System Tethered by an Oceanographic Coaxial Cable

Although many types of oceanographic instrumentation provide insight into the marine environment, few can provide the situational awareness of a live camera feed. This paper focuses on the case study of a live camera developed for multicoring operations. Previous experience of the authors was the development of a higher-bandwidth system called the Spider that utilizes a fiber optic cable to support multiple camera and sensor feeds. Fiber optic cable, however, is still uncommon on general purpose research vessels. The challenge of implementing a live-view system without fiber optics arises from the limited bandwidth and high losses associated with the available oceanographic coaxial cable and the need to transfer power and maintain communications using the same pair of conductors. After a compressed development schedule, the system was fielded during a coring expedition in April of 2024. The first field experience presented several areas of improvement, including a suspected thermal management issue that currently prevents use for more than ten minutes continuously. Regardless, the system was able to view critical phases of each deployment, most significantly providing live views of the seafloor during approach and coring.