Undersea Cable Research Articles

BATMAN: A Brain-like Approach for Tracking Maritime Activity and Nuance

As commercial geospatial intelligence data becomes more widely available, algorithms using artificial intelligence need to be created to analyze it. Maritime traffic is annually increasing in volume, and with it the number of anomalous events that might be of interest to law enforcement agencies, governments, and militaries. This work proposes a data fusion pipeline that uses a mixture of artificial intelligence and traditional algorithms to identify ships at sea and classify their behavior. A fusion process of visual spectrum satellite imagery and automatic identification system (AIS) data was used to identify ships. Further, this fused data was further integrated with additional information about the ship's environment to help classify each ship's behavior to a meaningful degree. This type of contextual information included things such as exclusive economic zone boundaries, locations of pipelines and undersea cables, and the local weather. Behaviors such as illegal fishing, trans-shipment, and spoofing are identified by the framework using freely or cheaply accessible data from places such as Google Earth, the United States Coast Guard, etc. The pipeline is the first of its kind to go beyond the typical ship identification process to help aid analysts in identifying tangible behaviors and reducing the human workload.

Techno-economic Assessment of a Hydrogen-based Islanded Microgrid in North-east

Currently, renewable energy-based generators are considered worldwide to achieve net zero targets. However, the stochastic nature of renewable energy systems leads to regulation and control challenges for power system operators, especially in remote and regional grids with smaller footprints. A hybrid system (i.e., solar, wind, biomass, energy storage) could minimise this issue. Nevertheless, the hybrid system is not possible to develop in many islands due to the limited land area, geographical conditions, and others. Hydrogen as a carrier of clean energy can be used in locations where the installation of extensive or medium-scale renewable energy facilities is not permissible due to population density, geographical constraints, government policies, and regulatory issues. This paper presents a techno-economic assessment of designing a green hydrogen-based microgrid for a remote island in North-east Australia. This research work determines the optimal sizing of microgrid components using green hydrogen technology. Due to the abovementioned constraints, the green hydrogen production system and the microgrid proposed in this paper are located on two separate islands. The paper demonstrates three cost-effective scenarios for green hydrogen production, transportation, and electricity generation. This work has been done using Hybrid Optimisation Model for Multiple Energy Resources or HOMER Pro simulation platform. Simulation results show that the Levelized Cost of Energy using hydrogen technology can vary from AU$0.37/kWh to AU$1.08/kWh depending on the scenarios and the variation of key parameters. This offers the potential to provide lower-cost electricity to the remote community. Furthermore, the CO2 emission could be reduced by 17,607,77 kg/year if the renewable energy system meets 100% of the electricity demand. Additionally, the sensitivity analysis in this paper shows that the size of solar PV and wind used for green hydrogen production can further be reduced by 50%. The sensitivity analysis shows that the system could experience AU$0.03/kWh lower levelized cost if the undersea cable is used to transfer the generated electricity between islands instead of hydrogen transportation. However, it would require environmental approval and policy changes as the islands are located in the Great Barrier Reef.

Submarine Communication Cables and Belligerent Rights in Armed Conflict

Submarine Communication Cables and Belligerent Rights in Armed Conflict

Commentary: Science and colonialism

Commentary: Science and colonialism

SIAM: A model for service implementation analysis applied to the impact of telegraphy in Macaronesian ports

Several factors have been considered to explain the success and pre-eminence of some ports over others, such as geography, telecommunications, taxation or the availability of local goods for trade. This is especially significant in the final period of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth century, which corresponds to the rise of steam navigation and the laying of the world network of submarine telegraph cables. This article presents a model (the Service Implementation Analysis Model or SIAM) that aims to analyse the influence of communications technology within historical models of sea trade. To evaluate this model, the authors propose using a scheme based on technology acceptance models, which perform a cost–benefit comparison, and adding an ex post analysis, so that this study can explain further reasons for the incorporation of these solutions. This analysis is complemented by a series of evaluation factors, which form a feedback system to incorporate scientific advances, regulatory changes, the geostrategic context, and social acceptance or rejection. Using these feedback factors, it is possible to study how the economic model is modified as a function of technological factors within the co-evolution of science and society as inseparable elements. This model has been applied to explain the divergence in the evolution of maritime trade among Macaronesian archipelagos before the Great War. However, it can be directly extrapolated to other cases of historical analysis in which technological evolution played a significant role.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue: The West's Response to China in the Indo-Pacific

As China’s actions have become increasingly aggressive in the Indo-Pacific, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue’s (Quad) growing interconnectedness reveals the West’s desire to preserve the liberal order. The Quad-- composed of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan-- was revived in 2017 amidst China’s encroachment on the sovereignty of Indo-Pacific nations and international waters. Through increased activity in infrastructure development, military interoperability, and key resource networks, the Quad’s renewal marks an acceleration of Western efforts to counter China’s growing threats to Western hegemony. By distilling the Quad’s activity into these three areas of cooperation, this paper examines the grouping’s actions and their implications for Western-China relations. In the area of infrastructure development, the Quad has emphasized a diversification of funding and high-quality practices to reduce reliance on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and has promoted democratic priorities through the formation of the Blue Dot Network (BDN). Within military interoperability, the expansion of Exercise Malabar to include all Quad nations and the decision to host the exercise in the Bay of Bengal reveals the Quad’s increased challenge to China’s encroachment on Indo-Pacific oceans. The Quad’s desire to reduce Indo-Pacific nations’ reliance on China is evident in its efforts to exert influence over key resource networks such as undersea communication cables, Covid-19 vaccines, and global supply chains. The Quad’s increased activity within these three sectors represents the grouping’s elevation to an increasingly concrete alliance, emerging as one of the West’s primary measures to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

The Reconstruction of Federalism: Foreign Submarine Telegraph Cables and American Law, 1868–78

In the wake of the Civil War, Americans contested the relationship between the federal government and states. Conflict over federal authority played out in concrete and surprising terms in a controversy that erupted in 1868 surrounding regulation of international telegraphy. The debate, which has remained largely unexamined, centered on whether a state could authorize a foreign company to land a submarine telegraph cable on American shores without Congress’s permission. Scholars have scrutinized consequences of the revision of federalism for individuals’ rights but have devoted less attention to implications for the nation’s international relations and commerce. The regulation of foreign cables, however, proved a key testing ground for the federal government’s efforts to assert sovereignty before both state authorities and other nations during Reconstruction. The episode revealed varied alliances and sources of opposition that emerged amid attempts to project federal power. It also reflected many Americans’ growing expectations of an expanded role for the national government in commerce and the international sphere—a position the federal government realized only haltingly. Intractable problems of federalism contributed to congressional inaction. While undertaking the formidable work of reconstructing the Union, the United States government struggled to delineate the physical boundaries of its authority.

Agents in the Ether

In the late nineteenth century, research in electromagnetism became intertwined with the Victorian British Empire’s ambitions to install a global network of submarine telegraph cables. In Imperial Science, Bruce Hunt details how the desire for quick communications from London to Egypt, and then on to India, drove progress in the physical sciences towards a theory of the electromagnetic field.

Optical interferometry-based array of seafloor environmental sensors using a transoceanic submarine cable.

Optical fiber-based sensing technology can drastically improve Earth observations by enabling the use of existing submarine communication cables as seafloor sensors. Previous interferometric and polarization-based techniques demonstrated environmental sensing over cable lengths up to 10,500 kilometers. However, measurements were limited to the integrated changes over the entire length of the cable. We demonstrate the detection of earthquakes and ocean signals on individual spans between repeaters of a 5860-kilometer-long transatlantic cable rather than the whole cable. By applying this technique to the existing undersea communication cables, which have a repeater-to-repeater span length of 45 to 90 kilometers, the largely unmonitored ocean floor could be instrumented with thousands of permanent real-time environmental sensors without changes to the underwater infrastructure.

Submarine Communication Cables and the Law of Armed Conflict: Some Enduring Uncertainties, and Some Proposals, as to Characterization

Abstract Submarine data cables are of fundamental strategic consequence. However, two intensely context-sensitive and contemporary sets of questions about how these cables are to be dealt with by the law of armed conflict remain—questions which state practice during the two World Wars either did not resolve or did not need to address. Through an examination of the relevant legal history and current law, this article seeks to explore potential answers to these question sets. The first question set relates to the general approach to be adopted when dealing with submarine data cables within LOAC: a sui generis regime; discrete analogy; or general principles? The second question set addresses three lingering queries regarding legal characterization of submarine data cables for LOAC purposes, namely: (i) Are they ordinary military objectives? (ii) Can they be considered neutral objects? (iii) How do we assess proportionality in relation to attack on submarine data cables? The analysis concludes that a modified application of the ordinary rule of proportionality in LOAC targeting, noting some of the difficulties surrounding the concepts of incidental damage in this context, offers the most useful way forward.

Imperial Science: Cable Telegraphy and Electrical Physics in the Victorian British Empire by Bruce J. Hunt

Reviewed by: Imperial Science: Cable Telegraphy and Electrical Physics in the Victorian British Empire by Bruce J. Hunt Andrea Giuntini (bio) Imperial Science: Cable Telegraphy and Electrical Physics in the Victorian British Empire By Bruce J. Hunt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 320. The development of telegraphy through submarine cables in the second half of the nineteenth century was a major episode in economic history, in terms of imperial power, invested capital, financial risk, technological challenges, and the involvement of public opinion. Submarine cables served political and military goals and stimulated the integration of economic and entrepreneurial activities of traders, bankers, insurance brokers, and those engaged in shipping. This winning combination of science and technology on the one hand, and entrepreneurial initiative on the other, fully reflects the leadership of the Western world at the time of imperialism. The first submarine cable was laid on the bottom of the sea between Dover and Calais in 1851; it was the outcome of extensive study and experimentation. It led scholars and entrepreneurs to envisage a cable across the ocean aimed at the American continent, which was accomplished in 1866. Once the oceanic depth was conquered, cable technology reached a level of standardization allowing a worldwide diffusion of the submarine network. Between 1850 and 1870, submarine telegraphy progressed significantly and reached technological maturity. Installation of the cables entailed extensive and difficult work. Design and construction were not the only complex stages of submarine connection: it was also necessary to transport the cables, weighing several tons, and lay them on an as-flat-as-possible deep sea floor by submerging them with the utmost care using pulleys. The transmission of electric impulses, subsequently converted into signals, through a cable submerged in deep water, posed an enormous technical and scientific challenge. Experiments in submarine telegraphy boosted research in the field of electrical measurement. These were led by a new class of engineers, working with great passion and commitment, who made electrical technologies part of the Victorian culture. Electrical standards were established in response to several failures. The core of this scientific development lay in studies on the conductivity of copper wires—their resistance differed considerably and they defined the quality of the signals. British scientist William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) understood that it was more relevant to focus on reception than transmission. From this observation in 1857, he determined the need to understand electrical measurement as a means of quality control. The identification of standards completely changed the perspective in this field, both for the manufacturers of cables and the technicians laying them. Experimentation in the submarine telegraph [End Page 576] sector contributed significantly to the maturity of a new generation of engineers, decisive for the subsequent expansion of a scientific engineering concept that became the soul of the second industrial revolution. In those years, the best engineers in the electricity sector passed through the world of telegraphy, producing many studies, and stimulating the standardization of a technology considered completely futuristic only a few years earlier. A new international community of specialists emerged, who by the nature of their expertise connected continents. A feverish circulation of ideas in places dedicated to scientific debate—books, newspapers and journals, conferences—is evidence of the intense collaborative activity aimed at the feasibility of laying a cable under the Atlantic. Hunt's book contributes to a historiography which already consists of excellent works. The book is based on a variety of sources, including archival material, official documents, popular magazines, leading newspapers, and the extensive existing literature. He tackles the subject from the point of view of the history of science and technology, underlining the contribution of key figures, mostly British. He has a profound technical knowledge of the subject and provides a clear overview of the physicists and electrical engineers involved, the role of scientific associations, and the narrow ties that linked the cable industry to electrical physics. The added value of the book is in providing evidence, as no other authors have done so far, of the technological steps leading to the great telegraph connection across the Atlantic and later around the world. Hunt also makes the various themes understandable to non-experts, building a compelling and well...

Love thy neighbor (or not): Regionalism and support for the use of offshore wind energy by others

Distributive fairness influences public acceptance of renewable energy technologies. Concerns about distributive fairness contribute to opposition to export of electricity and public preferences for electricity to be consumed near its production. Distributional issues are relevant to offshore wind energy development, where the coastal communities nearest to the developments may see none of the jobs, economic development, or profits associated with development, with undersea cables often delivering the electricity to faraway places. In a survey of coastal residents in the northeast United States, we find differences in support for use of offshore wind energy in their own state. Support for electricity use by other states, however, reveals the effects of subnational regionalism. Residents of Rhode Island prefer the use of electricity produced off their shores by the state of Massachusetts over New York; residents of New Hampshire prefer for Maine to consume energy over Massachusetts. These findings portend conflicts over the transmission of electricity as offshore wind energy development expands in U.S. and has implications for all renewable energy transmission that crosses regional boundaries.

The changing strategic significance of submarine cables: old technology, new concerns

ABSTRACT The strategic significance accorded to submarine cables has never been a static concept, but it has been homogenous: a focus on protecting cables from external threats. This article argues that because submarine cables have long had strategic value, they provide a means to examine the emerging concept of strategic technology competition between the United States and China. To do so, this article examines major changes to the submarine cable sector since 2015, including the success of Chinese company Huawei Marine, and US and other western government interventions in several cable projects. It characterises the strategic considerations exhibited by submarine cable activity in that period – influence building in third countries, a changing perception among the US and its partners of threat and protection priorities, and closer attention to cable security and surveillance considerations – and compares them with the traditional strategic values attached to submarine cables. It concludes strategic concerns about undersea cables includes a new concept: the construction and installation of cables as a strategic threat, and which adds complexity to a sector in which it is difficult to project influence. This article seeks to make a contribution to scholarship on strategic competition in emerging technologies.

The digital divide in state vulnerability to submarine communications cable failure

The backbone network of submarine communication cables (SCC) carries 98% of international internet traffic. Coastal and island states strongly depend on this physical internet infrastructure to provide internet connectivity. Although about 100 SCC breakdowns of human or natural origin occur at yearly average, a literature review reveals that there is no approach to assess individual state vulnerability to SCC failure in global comparison. In this article, the global SCC network is modeled based on publicly available data. Besides the analysis of the global network properties, a focus is put on remaining bandwidth capacities in three different failure scenario simulations of SCC breakdowns. As a result, this study identifies 15 highly vulnerable states and overseas territories, and another 28 territories that are classified as partially vulnerable to SCC failures. Since economic market decisions shape the structure of the SCC network, an uneven distribution of redundancies and the resulting vulnerability of disadvantaged economies can be confirmed. Therefore, the study's findings may contribute to a better assessment of the necessity of preventive protection measures of critical telecommunication infrastructures in states and territories characterized by high and medium vulnerability.

The Limited Communication Cables for Pacific Island Countries

Abstract This paper provides up-to-date analysis of the status of the undersea communication cables for Pacific Island countries. It identifies those countries with vulnerability to outages because they have just one cable and those countries that do not have a cable connection. This contribution to the ‘Current Legal Developments’ section builds upon the worldwide interest generated by a communication outage in Tonga early in 2022 and two announcements regarding cables for Kiribati late in 2021.

Rifiuti informatici, inquinamento digitale. Il lato insostenibile della 4a rivoluzione industriale

This paper is devoted to the electronic waste and the digital pollution topic. Firstly, concerning the e-waste, we are going to see its origin, the directions of its disposal, and if there is any possibility of recovery. Secondly, we are going to see the digital pollution. The data exchanged in internet leave a footprint not only in terms of Big Data but also in terms of the CO2 emissions. Millions of physical servers in data centers around the world, are connected with miles of undersea cables, and with switches and routers. All of them require a lot of energy to run. Finally, we will examine what measures governments can promote to manage the digital and ecological transitions. The challenge is to implement the digitalization process in the sense of sustainability according to the EU economic and social policies.

A Coordinated Control of Offshore Wind Power and BESS to Provide Power System Flexibility

The massive integration of variable renewable energy (VRE) in modern power systems is imposing several challenges; one of them is the increased need for balancing services. Coping with the high variability of the future generation mix with incredible high shares of VER, the power system requires developing and enabling sources of flexibility. This paper proposes and demonstrates a single layer control system for coordinating the steady-state operation of battery energy storage system (BESS) and wind power plants via multi-terminal high voltage direct current (HVDC). The proposed coordinated controller is a single layer controller on the top of the power converter-based technologies. Specifically, the coordinated controller uses the capabilities of the distributed battery energy storage systems (BESS) to store electricity when a logic function is fulfilled. The proposed approach has been implemented considering a control logic based on the power flow in the DC undersea cables and coordinated to charging distributed-BESS assets. The implemented coordinated controller has been tested using numerical simulations in a modified version of the classical IEEE 14-bus test system, including tree-HVDC converter stations. A 24-h (1-min resolution) quasi-dynamic simulation was used to demonstrate the suitability of the proposed coordinated control. The controller demonstrated the capacity of fulfilling the defined control logic. Finally, the instantaneous flexibility power was calculated, demonstrating the suitability of the proposed coordinated controller to provide flexibility and decreased requirements for balancing power.

On the Possibility of Using ULF/ELF Electromagnetic Waves from Undersea Cables to Detect Airplanes Submerged in the Ocean

The loss of Malaysian Flight on March 8, 2014, and the subsequent lengthy search for the aircraft highlights the need for an effective detection system for locating airplanes that have crashed into the ocean. The goal of this paper is to test the feasibility of detecting submerged airplanes using ultra-low frequency and/or extremely-low frequency electromagnetic signals generated by undersea cables located along the bottom of the ocean. The proposed detection system is tested using three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) modeling of the cable source, ocean water, ground, and submerged object (aircraft). The perturbation caused by the object is obtained for different positions of the object relative to the cable source. The magnitude of the perturbation is compared to the expected background level for a depth of 3 km into the ocean. A sensor array is proposed for detecting objects within several km of the cable.

A Meta-Integrative Qualitative Study on the Hidden Threats of Smart Buildings/Cities and Their Associated Impacts on Humans and the Environment

Smart buildings deploying 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) are viewed as the next sustainable solution that can be seamlessly integrated in all sectors of the built environment. The benefits are well advertised and range from inducing wellness and monitoring health, amplifying productivity, to energy savings. Comparatively, potential negative risks are less known and mostly relate to cyber-security threats and radiation effects. This meta-integrative qualitative synthesis research sought to determine the possible underlying demerits from developing smart buildings, and whether they outweigh the possible benefits. The study identified five master themes as threats of smart buildings: a surfeit of data centers, the proliferation of undersea cables, the consternation of cyber-security threats, electromagnetic pollution, and E-waste accumulation. Further, the paper discusses the rebound impacts on humans and the environment as smart buildings’ actualization becomes a reality. The study reveals that, although some aspects of smart buildings do have their tangible benefits, the potential repercussions from these not-so-discussed threats could undermine the former when all perspectives and interactions are analyzed collectively rather than in isolation.

A call to assess the impacts of electromagnetic fields from subsea cables on the movement ecology of marine migrants

AbstractThe number of subsea cables in the marine environment is likely to grow substantially in the near future. Arrays of energy‐generating windmills or wave power generators are planned for installation in the coastal waters of many countries worldwide. The electricity generated by these and other marine energy sources will be transported to shore through cables with the current and voltage creating electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Furthermore, there are also plans for the installation of undersea cables to interconnect countries and islands for the purpose of sharing power and communications. These also will generate EMFs in the marine environment. While shielding can negate the presence of direct electric fields, induced electric and magnetic fields readily penetrate into the water column. Cables carrying electric current produce anomalies in the earth's main field, which could have the potential for disrupting the migrations of fishes and diverse marine animals that rely on magnetic cues for orientation or navigation. Studies designed to test how these anthropogenic magnetic fields disrupt magnetic orientation have only recently started to be conducted. Given the cultural, economic, and conservation value of many of the species potentially at risk, such work should be immediately prioritized.