Abstract
Subsea systems designed for continuous operation on the seabed are required to demonstrate very high reliability and it is not uncommon to encounter requirements that state a 10 year Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and 20 year design life.
While the environment on the seabed is in general quite benign and predictable, the importance of system availability to maintain production and the duration over which reliability needs to be demonstrated becomes a critical issue.
This short paper briefly outlines the process, results and lessons learned from over four years of qualification testing, reliability analysis and extended life testing as part of the development of an advanced subsea surveillance system to ensure a final commercial product which shall maintain a high availability through-out its operational lifetime.