The trawling operation of fishing boats poses a great threat to the long-term survivability of submarine optical cables. About 70% of the inshore cable failures in our country are caused by fishing boats or ship anchorage. In order to carry out maintenance work，it is necessary to quickly and accurately locate the damage part of the optical cables，and obtain the actual cabling status on the seabed and the features of the seabed’s topography， landform and sediment in the cabling area. The complicated seabed environment brings great technical difficulty to the daily inspection，operation and maintenance of submarine optical cables. Based on the technical requirements for routing inspection of submarine optical cables，the conventional routine inspecting technology is analyzed in this paper. Based on the domestic and international situation of unmanned robots development，this paper provides a strong technical support for the improvement of self-inspection efficiency，accurate recognition and intelligent level for the submarine optical cables.
