Data Resolution and Future Challenges in Automated Undersea Cable System Design

Undersea optical cables form the backbone of global Internet infrastructure, carrying nearly 99% of international Internet data. As demand for high-speed and reliable connectivity continues to grow, optimizing undersea cable path planning has become essential for reducing costs, mitigating risks, and ensuring high-quality service delivery. While traditional manual planning methods remain widely used by cable system designers, surveyors, and planners, the increasing complexity of cable deployment necessitates the integration of automated methods that leverage advanced computational techniques to enhance efficiency and decision-making. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in cable path planning and system design, emphasizing the important role of data density in achieving optimal cable paths. In particular, we present realistic path-planning scenarios on the Earth’s surface and describe the Fast Marching Method (FMM), a computational approach that efficiently determines optimal routing based on available data. Simulation results show that increasing map resolution, along with accompanying data at the higher resolution, significantly enhances path planning accuracy, reduces deployment costs, and improves risk assessment, underscoring the importance of acquiring and utilizing high-density data. This understanding leads to a discussion of the challenges of data acquisition and computational scalability in processing large-scale datasets, and the importance of collaboration between cable system engineers, geospatial data scientists, and software developers. This paper proposes a collaborative framework in which automated algorithms complement traditional planning methods, enabling cost-effective solutions that continually adapt and become more effective through expert feedback. This research contributes to a more resilient, efficient, and adaptive global undersea communication network, paving the way for the next generation of intelligent, optimized cable infrastructure. © 2025 IEEE.