Nodes

The five nodes on the Regional Scale system will adapt high-voltage power and high-bandwidth communications to levels and formats useable by scientific instrumentation.

The System
The nodes are part of the RSN wet plant, the system that will provide underwater electrical and optical outlets to scientific instruments almost anywhere in a plate-scale section of the ocean on a 24/7 basis. A shore station will provide the power feed for the wet plant and the connectivity portal of the underwater system to the rest of the world via the Internet. The backbone cable carries the high-voltage power and multi-Gigabit data streams to the underwater nodes.

Nodes
Nodes convert the incoming high-voltage power to levels useable by scientific instrumentation. The nodes also convert the high-bandwidth data streams into the proper formats for connecting individual instruments to the node. Each node will have sufficient power and bandwidth to simultaneously operate large numbers of instruments connected to the structure. Expansion ports on the node will also enable remote instrumentation to be operated at distances of up to 100 km away from the node location.