Fiber Optic Telemetry For Deep ROV Operations

Terence M. Dwyer, Ian B. MacKay, Graham A. J. Smith

Focal Technologies Inc.
40 Thornhill Dr., Unit 7
Dartmouth, NS, B3B 1S1, Canada

1. INTRODUCTION
In response to demands for operation in deeper
water, and the associated need for longer ROV
umbilical cables, new technologies are being
adopted by offshore energy operators. Among
these are singlemode optical fiber and digital
signal multiplexing. This paper reviews the state
of the art of aspects of these important
technological advances.
2. FIBER OPTICS
In recent years, trends in ocean activity have
required operations in increasingly deep water. In
the offshore oil industry, this is generally for the
exploration and development of deeper and/or
more remote petroleum reservoirs. ROV systems
deployed in such areas require longer and
stronger umbilical cables that can also handle the
ever-increasing data rates required for digitized
video, high resolution imaging sonars, and digital
networks where total data rates often exceed
1 Gbit/s. The beneficial signal characteristics and
physical properties of optical fiber enable much
longer telemetry systems than are possible with
copper alone.
The dominance of fiber in telecommunications
systems is a strong indicator of its significant
advantages over copper for data signals. As
cable lengths increase, the high signal attenuation
of copper, even coaxial cable, quickly becomes
unacceptable. Optical fibers provide not only
much lower attenuation, as shown in Figure 1, but
also smaller size, lower weight, and much larger
signal bandwidth than copper.
Fibers low
attenuation is also constant with signal frequency
up to the microwave band, eliminating the need
for equalizers in the end equipment. Its inherent
immunity to electro-magnetic interference (EMI) is
another valuable property in electrically noisy
environments.
Optical fiber has an important size and weight
advantage over insulated electrical conductors.
As umbilical cables get longer, their increased

weight and drag in the water cause higher cable

loads. More area for strength members in the
cable cross-section is required, which in turn
makes the cable even heavier and larger in
diameter. The small size of optical fiber allows a
reduction in the diameter of the payload core,
while its reduced weight is also helpful. In
conjunction with high-modulus structural
materials, such as aramid fiber, the size and
weight saving achieved by using fiber optics for
signals allows ROV cables to remain manageable
in lengths as great as 10 km. Reducing cable
size and weight also reduces the size and weight
of an ROV Tether Management System (TMS).

Figure 1 - Fiber Versus Copper

In the past, most fiber optic ROV tethers
employed multimode fiber, since it was the first
commercially available fiber, the associated
components were available, and connectors for it
were relatively easy to install. The large core size
of multimode fibers, typically either 50 or 62.5
microns, couples large amounts of power from
inexpensive LED transmitters. But although
multimode fiber is an improvement over metallic
coaxial conductors, its bandwidth and attenuation
limit practical cable lengths to 3 or 4 km. Modal
dispersion, i.e. pulse spreading caused by the
differences in transit time for different modes,
accounts for most of multimode fibers bandwidth
limitation.

Singlemode fiber is superior to multimode fiber in

several ways and has become the standard for
long cables. It is distinguished from multimode
fiber by its relatively small core diameter, typically
8 microns, which permits only one mode of light to
propagate, thus eliminating modal dispersion and
increasing bandwidth. The smaller core size is
better at containing the optical energy in the fiber,
reducing attenuation from 1-3 dB/km for
multimode fiber to about 0.5 dB/km for
singlemode. This allows singlemode fiber to
support telemetry over longer lengths than
multimode. Macro-bending losses and losses
related to cable manufacturing processes are
typically much lower than for multimode fiber.
Singlemode fiber also has an extremely large
bandwidth. Using multiple wavelengths, it is
possible to transmit 20 Gbit/s over a single
100 km fiber without repeaters. With so much
bandwidth available, all of the analog and digital
signals in an ROV system can typically be
multiplexed onto a single fiber, although
additional fibers are normally used for reasons
given in section 4.
The primary design considerations for singlemode
links are total optical attenuation, chromatic
dispersion, and return loss. The glass used in
fiber has low attenuation windows around
1300 nm and 1550 nm. Losses in both windows
ITEM

for cabled fiber are typically under 0.5 dB per

kilometer. The optical transmission system must
be designed with sufficient optical power and
receiver sensitivity to accommodate the total
optical losses in the system. A sample optical
power budget is shown in Figure 2.
Chromatic dispersion, rather than attenuation, is
normally the distance-limiting parameter for high
speed digital signals on singlemode fiber. Pulse
spreading results from the slight difference in
velocity for photons of different wavelengths, a
parameter known as dispersion that is a
characteristic of the glass itself and is a function
of wavelength. Excessive pulse spreading results
in interference between adjacent bits in the serial
data stream. Longer cables exhibit proportionally
more such interference.
Standard fiber has a low dispersion region near
1300 nm.
This is occasionally shifted by
manufacturers to the 1550 nm window, for its
slightly lower attenuation. Ideal lasers would emit
at a single wavelength, thus eliminating the pulse
spreading caused by dispersion. Typical laser
sources, however, have 1-3 nm spectral widths.
The resulting chromatic dispersion must be
accounted for in the system design. In most
cases, dispersion can be calculated and
incorporated as a power penalty of 1 or 2 dB in
the flux budget.
TYPICAL LOSS

TOTAL LOSS

0.5 dB

0.50 dB

0.25 dB

0.75 dB

TMS winch reel JB connectors

0.5 dB

1.25 dB

Model 242 SM FORJ

3.0 dB

4.25 dB

Transmitter

POWER
0 dBm

Connector at pressure case

Tether (500 m typically)

TMS winch cage JB connectors

0.5 dB

4.75 dB

Umbilical (10 km)

5.0 dB

9.75 dB

Deck winch reel JB connectors

0.5 dB

10.25 dB

Model 242 SM FORJ

3.0 dB

13.25 dB

Deck winch shipboard JB connectors

0.5 dB

13.75 dB

0.05 dB

13.80 dB

Connectors

0.5 dB

14.30 dB

Dispersion Penalty

1.0 dB

15.30 dB

Deck cable (100 m)

Total Received Power

-15.3 dBm

Receiver sensitivity

-20.0 dBm

Margin

4.7 dB

SM=singlemode; JB=junction box.

Figure 2 - Sample Optical Power Budget

Return loss, or back reflection, is a measure of

how much light is reflected back by an optical
component, such as a connector. Higher return
loss, or lower back reflection, means less
reflected light. Too much reflected power can
degrade a laser transmitters performance,
resulting in an undesirable power penalty.
Commercially available PC (physical contact)
fiber optic connectors have return losses of 40 to
50 dB, while APC (angled physical contact)
connectors can achieve return losses as high as
70 dB. Use of low power transmitters minimizes
the effects of back reflection.

configuration. TDM usually requires more

bandwidth than FDM, but this is a readily
available commodity with optical fiber.
The rapid and ongoing improvements in digital
integrated circuitry, and associated decreasing
costs, have established TDM as todays dominant
multiplexing technique. There are many well
established protocols available, such as FDDI,
SONET, Fibre Channel and various forms of
Ethernet. Many proprietary data link schemes,
such as used in the Model 903 shown in Figure 3,
are based on high speed parallel-to-serial
conversion chip sets.

3. MULTIPLEXING AND DIGITAL

TECHNOLOGY
When multiple signals need to be combined on a
single fiber, three types of multiplexing are
commonly used: time division multiplexing (TDM),
frequency division multiplexing (FDM), and
wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). Each
technique allows many separate data channels to
be carried by a single transmission signal.
Channels are kept separated by time slot,
frequency band, or by the wavelength of the light
used. Since fiber allows simultaneous and
bidirectional transmission of many wavelengths
without interference, wavelength division
multiplexing can be used in conjunction with FDM
and TDM to multiply the effective capacity of the
fiber.
FDM is an analog technique that is broadly used
in CCTV and CATV systems as well as over-theair radio and television broadcasting. The signal
to be transmitted modulates a carrier frequency,
hence shifting the information to a portion of the
frequency spectrum around the carrier. By using
different carrier frequencies, spaced sufficiently
far apart, multiple channels can be conveyed on
the same transmission medium. FDM has limited
ability to handle changes in the number of
channels, or their bandwidth requirements,
without adding equipment.
TDM is a flexible digital technique whereby
multiple parallel digital channels are combined in
a single high-speed serial bit stream. Each
channel uses only certain bits, or time slots, in the
serial sequence.
One of TDMs major
advantages lies in the ability to assign more bits
per second to the channels that need it, and fewer
bits per second to slower channels. This flexibility
yields very efficient use of the transmission
bandwidth and allows easy changes in

Figure 3 - Model 903 Multiplexer (Remote Unit)

Analog signals can be incorporated in TDM
schemes by digital sampling. Video signals, for
example, are typically digitized at four times the
subcarrier frequency (3.58 MHz for NTSC) with 8
to 10 bit resolution.
The digitization and
reconstruction process can be well controlled to
maintain signal quality over the transmission
system. Because of TDMs inherent digital
nature, signal degradation through the fiber cable
itself is eliminated, provided that the digital signal
is received properly. This effectively isolates the
desired signal from the adverse effects of
dispersion and attenuation described earlier. In
contrast, analog transmission schemes generally
suffer from signal degradation as a function of
distance transmitted. Regardless of the method,
existing standards for transmission quality, such
as EIA/TIA-250-C for video, allow evaluation of
end-to-end system performance.
Even relatively slow data signals can be sampled
to avoid synchronization issues.
Common
formats, like RS-232, RS-422, and RS-485, may
be converted to TTL voltage levels and combined
by a microprocessor or other digital circuits. The
sampling process does not involve an analog-to-

digital converter, since the signals are already

digital. It is sufficient to simply accept the binary
state of each channel in sequence.
With
asynchronous protocols, this bit sampling can
be as slow as 3 or 4 times the channel data rate
without significant degradation.
Wavelength division multiplexing places channels
on separate wavelengths of light. The technique
is not limited to analog or digital signals and can
be combined with both FDM and TDM signals.
The entire signal capacity of the fiber is multiplied
by the number of wavelengths employed;
normally 1300 nm and 1550 nm are used in
singlemode fiber.
The combination and
separation of wavelengths is actually done
passively by an inexpensive optical device, also
known as a WDM (wavelength division
multiplexer). Typical singlemode WDMs are

bidirectional with insertion losses under 1 dB and

isolations of greater than 30 dB.
A typical WDM multiplexing scheme is shown in
Figure 4. Bidirectional transmission on a single
fiber is provided with a 1310 nm uplink and
1550 nm downlink.
Newer dense WDM systems (DWDM) enable 8 or
16 separate wavelengths closely spaced near
1550 nm. Currently used in advanced telecommunications systems, DWDM is an expensive
technique requiring highly stable lasers with
narrow spectral widths and special non-zero
dispersion-shifted fiber (NZ-DSF) to minimize
non-linear mixing effects. In future, though, this
technique may provide a viable upgrade path for
ROVs from conventional singlemode systems.

Figure 4 - Block Diagram of Model 903 Fiber Optic Transmission System

4. HOW MANY FIBERS?

Although the technology is available to combine
all control and communications channels for even
the largest ROV system on a single optical fiber,
more than one fiber is generally used. This may
be to accommodate a preferred system
configuration, a future upgrade, or to allow for a
failure in the optical fiber link. The loss of a single
fiber in a multiplexed system could cause total

loss of control of the vehicle. For this reason

alone, availability of a spare fiber is critical. Using
an inexpensive optical switch, the multiplexer
system can be manually or automatically
transferred from a bad fiber link to a good one
with minimal loss of data. Most umbilical cables
using singlemode fiber have from 4 to 10 fibers
available.
Multi-pass singlemode Fiber Optic Rotary Joints
(FORJs), needed in the surface and TMS
winches, are now standard components. Focals
Model 242 multi-pass FORJ, shown in Figure 5,
accommodates up to three singlemode passes
with insertion losses typically under 3 dB and
rotational variations less than 0.5 dB.
5. CONCLUSION

Figure 5 - Model 242 Singlemode FORJ

(2 pass version shown)

The advances in fiber optic and digital

multiplexing technologies have enabled the
extension of ROV systems to deeper waters.
Ongoing development in the technologies will
provide even greater bandwidths and ranges in
the near future.