The primary research of the junction box based seafloor observatory remote control system

Recognized as the third observation platform, seafloor observation system enables long term, continuous, real time, all weather and multitask scientific observation and research and makes its self-construction the most remarkable trend in international marine science and technology. China is now actively preparing its own East China Sea Seafloor Observation System, in the construction of which emerge some critical technological components to guarantee the entire efforts, namely how to monitor the working condition of seafloor equipments and how to control over their normal operation in accordance with the changing marine environment. In this paper we first discuss the hub role of junction box and how it offers the technical ideas for designing the junction box based seafloor observatory remote control system. Then we propose a client-server (C/S) architecture model to study and develop the junction box based seafloor observatory remote control system, of which the server end is the in situ junction box (serial server) and sensors connected to it while the client end is the shore switch control system at the offshore platform. In terms of communication protocol, we agree that the backbone between offshore platform and observing node junction box selects optical fiber communication based on TCP/IP protocol and the junction box subnet selects RS232/485/422 serial communication. Based on the previous discussion, we live the specific design for this remote control system into realization synthesizing Socket, component, multithreading and other related object oriented programming technologies. The realized seafloor observatory remote control system has been put into use in China´s first Seafloor Observatory and has proved to function well in practical applications.