Subsea Habitat System

The Sentinel™ System

Fully integrated modular system for subsea habitation

The Senentinel™ System makes possible a completely new world of subsea living and working.

The modular system is endlessly configurable, completely customisable, and flexes seamlessly to accommodate short-term through to semi-permanent deployments, anywhere on the Continental Shelf.

By enabling the manufacture, transport, deployment, maintenance, retrieval and redeployment of modular subsea habitat components, the Sentinel System is at once safe, efficient and economical.

And in its completely transformative technology, conceived without compromise on the six Sentinel Design Tenets, the system changes subsea habitation once and for all.

DEEP is working closely with world-leading certification body DNV to ensure that Sentinel is the world’s first subsea habitat to achieve third-party certification. DEEP will not compromise on safety to achieve its mission.

Proudly working with the world’s leading classification body, DNV to achieve the first third-party classification of a subsea habitat.

Explore Sentinel

“DEEP represents to me the best chance we’ll ever have for returning habitats to the sea floor, for peaceful purposes. Certainly, within my lifetime!”

John Clarke

Former Head of the UNITED STATES Naval Experimental Diving Unit

SENTINEL BENEFITS

DESIGN TENET #1

Reconfigurability

The Sentinel™ System can be configured at virtually infinite scale, and re-configured between missions without the need to recover to the surface. It is as suited to smaller, six-crew, short-term deployments as it is to 50-crew, multi-nation, semi-permanent research stations. Its components can be configured, re-configured and re-located at depth.

For Sentinel operators, this reconfigurability affords the benefit of being able to tailor a Sentinel span specifically to suit particular tasks, and to re-configure it between – and even during – missions.

DESIGN TENET #2

Pressure-Adapted

The Sentinel™ System has been designed for operation at either one-atmosphere, or at ambient pressure.

One atmosphere operations enable short-visits to Sentinel via submarine transfer, ideal for academics or media professionals without diving qualifications. Ambient operations allow the use of Sentinel’s two moonpools for diving excursions, making it perfect for long-form missions by qualified divers.

DESIGN TENET #3

Habitability

The Sentinel™ System features customisable interiors unlike any other subsea habitat. To ensure Sentinel Operators can perform to their very best, DEEP’s Human Performance, Human Factors and Dive teams have collaborated on every aspect. This means a great night’s sleep, delicious and nutritious food, and a warm and pleasant living environment.

DESIGN TENET #4

Modularity

Key to the Sentinel™ System flexibility and re-deployability are the modularity of systems, components and architecture. Interiors can be re-configured on the seabed; entire sections can be added, removed or re-located without affecting the operation of neighbouring Sentinels. The possibilities are without end.

DESIGN TENET #5

Re-deployability

Sentinels will have a service life of 20 years and can be re-deployed to different locations across the world to maximise their utilisation and optimise their usability.

The ease with which Sentinel systems can be re-deployed provides Sentinel owners and operators the opportunity to work on multiple smaller projects, for which traditional habitats were not viable. The animation above illustrates the ability to move Sentinels across a large area between either fixed or mobile foundations.

DESIGN TENET #6

Surface Independence

DEEP is committed to the complete eradication of the requirement for a financially and environmentally expensive Dive Support Vessel (DSV) stationed on the surface during dive operations.

The Sentinel power systems are based on a micro-grid architecture and are designed to work with DEEP’s renewable power and satellite communications buoy. DEEP’s Research team are actively developing a large-scale bio-reactor to treat all waste, negating the need for the periodic emptying of tanks.

Sentinel use cases

Many flags sitting just below the water's surface

Multi-Nation Research Station

With a large, multi-span arrangement of Sentinels, DEEP intends to deliver on the decades-old promise of an ‘International Space Station for the oceans’.

Space Analog

Sentinel’s flexibility means it can be configured to mimic the spatial and environmental conditions necessary to provide a high-fidelity analog to space.

Artist render of a modern university campus on the edge of the sea

Campus Extension

Sentinel offers Universities and Institutions an affordable option for extending their campus into the oceans for hands-on and eyes-on learning.

the wreck of a World War II plane on the seabed in the foreground. In the background, one of DEEP's Sentinel System subsea habitats can be seen.

Long-form Archaeology

Utilising a single Sentinel, archaeological and recovery missions that used to take months using traditional air-diving techniques, can now be completed in a matter of days or weeks.

“DEEP is leading the way in development and expansion of novel approaches for a sustained intersection of deep sea and humanity.
As demonstrated through a continuous presence in space – time and exposure to a unique environment has led to significant breakthroughs in science, engineering, and a thirst to extend our reach beyond our planet.”

Dr. Dawn Kernagis

crew member of the NASA NEEMO XXI undersea mission

Our approach to

Safety

DEEP takes its responsibilities toward safety as an essential and meaningful part of the process of innovation. All DEEP products will be certified by a third-party Classification society. For the Sentinel and Submarine programs, we are delighted to be working with industry leaders, DNV. Never shall we compromise safety to achieve our mission of making humans aquatic.

Environment

We love our planet and we adore our oceans. That’s why all of our products are designed with longevity and autonomy as a core principle, and why our products are designed to leave as close to no impact on the sea-bed as possible.

Waste

It is DEEP’s intention to complete work on a fully closed-loop waste management system. DEEP’s Research team is working on scaling and proving a number of technologies, including bio-reactors.