Tether
A tether is a length of cable which connects the Onboard Computer to the Topside Computer. Radio frequency (RF) waves do not travel far through water and acoustic modems have limited bandwidth, so a tether is a critical component to connect the vehicle to a surface computer.
Requirements
The Onboard Computer communicates with 10/100/1000 Base Ethernet. If 10/100 Base is acceptable, a standard Cat 5 cable may be used to connect to the vehicle and topside computer. The maximum transmission length of Cat5 cable is around 100m.
![Tether](tether.png)
Alternative tether types (twisted pair, fiber optic, etc) and lengths require a Tether Interface.