FOSMARIN: Advanced Fibre Optic Sensing for Submarine Critical Infrastructure Protection

The European Union has identified the importance of securing subsea infrastructure in several recent documents, including the commission recommendation on “Secure and Resilient Submarine Cable Infrastructure” and the “EU Action Plan on Cable Security”.

This importance has become even more apparent after several attacks on subsea cables in the Baltic sea between 2022 and 2024. To combat this issue, FOSMARIN will develop a system that detects and predicts threats to subsea infrastructure like pipelines and energy and data cables, by using Fiber Optic Acoustic Sensing (FOAS). FOAS is a technology that can detect tiny vibrations along a cable which enables us to “hear” vessel movements and threats like anchor drops or earthquakes.

In FOSMARIN, we will develop a system that combines FOAS data with external sources, like AIS, to enable situational awareness around subsea infrastructure and make them more resilient against man-made and natural threats. The results from this system will on the one hand benefit security authorities directly in their Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) through CISE (Common Information Sharing Environment) integration and indirectly by storing FOAS features that will enable post-incident investigation capabilities.

In FOSMARIN, we will record FOAS data at two test sites, which will be made publicly available, one where we will carry out our own testing activities and a commercial cable that contains operational signals. After the development phase, the FOSMARIN system will be deployed at third party infrastructure to demonstrate the solution in a real-life environment. The project will conclude with two whitepapers on the future developments and trends in subsea fibre optic sensing and on the legal aspects and impact on SOP of security authorities.