Submarine Cable Safety Monitoring and Assessment Technology

Submarine Cable Safety Monitoring and Assessment Technology

Power transmission relies on long-distance submarine cables to deliver electricity to onshore locations. These cables must withstand harsh and complex marine conditions, with statistics showing that 80% of global offshore wind farm insurance claims are related to submarine cables. This article describes the development of a technology to monitor the burial depth of submarine cables in real time to protect them from marine environmental hazards, which are a major cause of damage and insurance claims in marine zones. The method involves creating numerical models of the cable, soil, and seawater, and verifying these models with field data to achieve accurate predictions of burial depth. The study uses historical sea temperature data and machine learning algorithms, notably the random forest model, to predict seabed temperatures, enhancing the accuracy of the models. The technology has been tested and shown to provide precise burial depth measurements, which could be particularly useful for maintaining and monitoring submarine cables in Taiwan's marine zones and assisting in operational decision-making and early warning systems.