OBSEA is a cabled seafloor observatory located 4 km off the Vilanova i la Geltru coast in a fishing protected area. It is connected to the coast by an energy and communications mixed cable.
The main advantages of having a cabled observatory are that it provides an uninterrupted power supply to the scientific instruments and offers a high bandwidth communication link. This way, real time data is available and problems encountered in battery powered systems are avoided. The proposed solution is the implementation of an optical Ethernet network that transmits data continuously to marine sensors connected to the observatory. With OBSEA, we can perform a real time observation of multiple parameters in the marine medium.