Development of a submarine optically pumped magnetometer
The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle(AUV)equipped with a magnetometer conducts underwater magnetic anomaly detec-tion,enabling long-duration and large-scale continuous sampling.It offers advantages such as concealment,high efficiency,high practicality,wide application range,strong maneuverability,and robust endurance.To improve measurement accuracy,synchronous seabed magnetic field data is needed as a reference to counteract environmental magnetic noise.To address this,a submarine optically pumped magnetometer was developed to provide a reference for processing AUV magnetic anomaly detection data.The submarine optical-ly pumped magnetometer consists of a magnetic field measurement unit and an acoustic release unit,capable of high-precision autono-mous acquisition of the total magnetic field on the seabed,as well as underwater acoustic release and recovery.The magnetic field measurement unit includes an optical pumping probe,electronic unit,counter,battery pack,and nylon pressure chamber.The acoustic release unit includes an acoustic transducer,acoustic communication board,electro-corrosion decoupler,cement block,buoyancy block,and frame.This design addresses key technical challenges such as miniaturization,autonomous acquisition,and underwater a-coustic communication.In 2022,a magnetic anomaly detection test was conducted in the offshore waters of Qingdao.The test results ver-ified the autonomous seabed magnetic field acquisition and the release and recovery functions of the submarine optically pumped magne-tometer,providing effective reference data for underwater target detection.
magnetic anomaly detection of underwater targetsoptically pumped magnetometerseafloor magnetic field observationhydroacoustic release