Subsea RFID

At the UUVS show in Southampton (UK), CDL has demonstrated a concept for the electronic identification of valves and similar objects on the seabed. In large seafloor installations there can now be more than 1,000 individual valves, many of these are identical in size and shape and sometimes have to be manipulated in low visibility. The RFID demo system showed a subsea interrogation antenna moving on a track in seawater and passing over 3 subsea RFID tags. In each case the tag was scanned for information and the valve description brought up on the software demo screen. RFID tags are reliable and are completely passive, they do not require any maintenance or battery changes and have MTBF figures of several decades.