An Example: Biofouling Protection for Marine Environmental Sensors by Local Chlorination

These days, many marine autonomous environment monitoring networks are set up in the world. Such systems take advantage of existing superstructures such as offshore platforms, lightships, piers, breakwaters or are placed on specially designed buoys or deep sea fix stations. The major goal of these equipments is to provide in real time reliable measurements without costly frequent maintenance. These autonomous monitoring systems are affected by a well-known phenomenon in seawater condition, called biofouling. Consequently, such systems without efficient biofouling protection are hopeless. This protection must be applied to the sensors and to the underwater communication equipments based on acoustic technologies. This paper presents the results obtained in laboratory and at sea, with various instruments, protected by a localised chlorine generation system. Two other major protection techniques, wipers and copper shutters, are presented as well.