Low Cost, Fiber Optic Array, Using Continuous Component Construction

Significant advances have been made over the past few years in all optical arrays. Low cost optical sensors have been produced and demonstrated along with optical telemetry capable of multiplexing many sensors onto a single optical fiber. Although the new optical sensors and telemetry designs have come a long way toward making optical arrays an economic reality, the array construction they are housed in has not. It is essentially the same as used in existing fleet array design for the past 10 years. These existing designs end up increasing the number of splices needed in the optical array, place much higher mechanical loading on the internal components and increase the overall cost of the array. The optical array construction technique proposed here is an innovative design which will completely automate much of the optical array construction. It provides for continuous array construction with no discrete bulkheads, machine wrapping of open cell foam used to position internal components, machine wrapping of optical fibers which carry telemetrized hydrophone signals, high radial strength composite spiral ring for increased handling reliability and a continuously extruded outer hose wall. This construction technique features low cost but maintains high reliability in a low flow noise construction.