China Conducts Successful Tests of Deep Water Location System

The system renders it possible to map equipment placed as deep as 15,133 metres below sea level, with a nearby research ship unremittingly keeping track of incoming signals.

China has successfully tested a system of underwater location at a depth exceeding 10,000 metres during a field trial of the equipment for the complex named Tsaihungyuy for deep water research.

Per the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the tests were conducted on 13 December in the vicinity of the Mariana Trench by a team of scientists aboard the research vessel Shen Ko.

According to the head of the research group Tsui Veichen, the equipment for underwater location went deep into the sea by means of the re-entry module Tsaihungyuy, and during the test, it was possible to obtain a signal and determine the exact geolocation.

The agency specified that the signal with the location details at the depth was received by the vessel every 12 seconds. The equipment, developed by the scientific and research centre Shenyuan, based on the Shanghai Oceanographic University, reached the point of 10,913 metres in approximately four hours. During the tests, the equipment for underwater location worked without interruption, in a stable mode, the agency reported, with the maximum distance that can be measured with the equipment amounting to 15,133 metres.

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The underwater location system is a tremendously important technology for oceanographic research, resource mining in the ocean, preservation of the marine environment, and security maintenance at sea. The system enables researchers to determine from the vessel the exact location of deep-sea equipment.