US Patent 7539413 Observation apparatus and observation system

The present invention discloses a submarine observation system in which a plurality of carrier lights assigned to each submarine observation equipment is transmitted from a land terminal apparatus to an optical submarine cable (down-going) by using a WDM transmission. In the submarine observation equipment, only a prescribed carrier light is demultiplexed by an optical demultiplexer, an observation signal indicating an observation result is generated by an observation device, intensity of the carrier light demultiplexed by the optical demultiplexer is modulated by an optical amplifier based on an observation signal, and the modulated carrier light is multiplexed by an optical multiplexer. The multiplexed carrier light is output to the optical submarine cable (up-going) to be returned to the land terminal apparatus being the transmission station. The land terminal apparatus is able to obtain an observation signal of each observation point by separating carrier lights based on each wavelength and receiving a separated carrier light of each wavelength. Accordingly, the system can be structured with one optical fiber and can be extendable by increasing or decreasing carrier lights, and either one of the land terminal apparatuses can receive an observation signal even when the optical submarine cable is cut off.