Solid-State Pressure-Tolerant Illumination for MBARI´s Underwater Low-Light Imaging System

A significant amount of energy is consumed by the typical illumination systems of underwater vehicles. Attempts to utilize more efficient LED illumination underwater have been unsuccessful because the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were coupled to a standard imaging system and they were not able to generate enough light to adequately illuminate the scene. In cases where the LEDs were grouped together, to provide more scene illumination, the lighting assembly was inefficient in size. The recent availability of high intensity LEDs provides a way to produce efficient and adequate lighting from a compact assembly. This paper covers the development of a deep ocean assembly based on these high intensity LEDs