China's "Jiaolong" completes three 7,000-meter-class deep-sea trials

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 25, China's "Jiaolong" manned submersible completed the first round of 7,000-meter-class sea trials after its second iterative upgrade in the Philippine Sea Basin, conducting a total of 3 dives, with a maximum dive depth of 7,056.9 meters, setting a record for the maximum dive depth of the second leg of China's Ocean Expedition No. 100. The "Deep Sea No. 1" research vessel carrying the "Jiaolong" undertook the support task for these sea trials, and the submersible returned safely after completing the deep-sea trials.

The sea trials focused on deep-sea operational capabilities following the domestically upgraded configuration. The submersible was equipped with a 7,000-meter-class high-energy-density oil-immersed lithium battery pack and adopted domestically produced direct-drive low-noise DC thrusters. Sun Yongfu, project director of the National Deep Sea Center, introduced that the upgraded "Jiaolong" can operate underwater for up to 10.8 hours per dive and can achieve deep-sea cruising speeds exceeding 2.5 knots. The submersible also expanded its emergency hydraulic system interfaces and was equipped with a large-depth seawater hydraulic buoyancy adjustment system.

The observation system adopts wide-angle, high-zoom ultra-high-definition camera equipment capable of capturing 4K underwater imagery. The research team also developed an intelligent deep-sea seabed detection system based on a multimodal large model, using more than 800,000 images of deep-sea organisms and substrates for model training, which can identify typical organisms and substrates in videos and automatically record information such as names, latitude and longitude, time, and depth.

In terms of dive safety assurance, the "Jiaolong" applied a fault diagnosis and auxiliary decision-making system covering propulsion, control, and other equipment systems, which can retrieve troubleshooting plans, historical handling records, and relevant technical drawings. The research mother ship was also equipped with a shipborne 5G private network and a deep-sea vessel monitoring system to undertake data transmission and shipborne operation coordination tasks.