Early in this month, China’s Fendouzhe manned submersible descended to 10,909 meters in the Mariana Trench, setting a new world record for manned submersible deep-diving.
From the disclosed information, this submersible does not adopt cables to connect with the mothership, instead, it has an independent navigating system. Fendouzhe can be viewed as a miniature manned submarine. The traditional underwater submarine, also known as remotely operated vehicles, is connected to the ship with a set of cables. These cables are stored in a winch where slip rings are installed. With this system, power and other signal can be transmitted between the main ship and ROV. Different from the traditional underwater submarine, Fendouzhe gets rid of the burdensome cables and therefore achieve great movability. What’s more, for signal transmission, Fendouzhe adopts underwater acoustic communication. Its agility and applications of new underwater exploration technology has won the gaze of the world.
The exploration China has carried out is relatively risky and expensive. Behind this great success are numerous years of deep-sea diving experience. The most common way to explore the deep sea nowadays is through unmanned ROV, which can bring down the cost and lower the risk. However, this myriameter ROV doesn’t adopt underwater acoustic communication system, it still needs slip rings and cables to transmit power and communication signal.
In ROV’s transmission system, slip rings are playing an important role. Fiber optic rotary joints are used for communication signal transmission. Fiber optic rotary joints alone are not enough; they are usually integrated with power transmission slip rings. This integration can therefore ensure smooth signal transmission while providing constant drive to the ROV. So what’s the fittest fiber optic slip ring model for ROVs? JINPAT has develop specific fiber optic electric slip rings for ROVs that works around 3,000 meter undersea. These specific ROV slip rings integrate multi-channels single mode fiber optic rotary joint and multi-channels electric slip ring that can work at 2,500V. Meanwhile, to ensure high quality transmission of optic signals, signal repeaters are installed in the cable system.
China, just like many other countries in the world, is exploring its way deep down to the sea, searching for infinite possibilities. JINPAT will also devote to developing innovative slip rings to support submersibles and other underwater robotics. Through providing technology support, JINPAT without doubt will be part of this great exploration.