Ocean Wireless Networking and Real Time Data Management

Recent advances in technology have enabled the exploitation of satellite communications for high-speed (> 64 kbps) duplex communications with oceanographic ships at sea. Furthermore, decreasing costs for high-speed communications have made possible continuous connectivity to the global Internet for delivery of data ashore and communications with scientists and engineers on the ship. Through support from the Office of Naval Research, we have planned a series of tests using the R/V Revelle for real time data delivery of large quantities of underway data (e.g. continuous multibeam profiling) to shore for quality control, archiving, and real-time data availability. The Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) were funded by the NSF Information Technology Research (ITR) Program, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology [Cal-(IT)2] and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for research entitled: "Exploring the Environment in Time: Wireless Networks & Real-Time Management." We will describe the technology to be used for the real-time seagoing experiment and the planned expansion of the project through support from the ITR grant. The short-term goal is to exercise the communications system aboard ship in various weather conditions and sea states while testing and developing the real-time data quality control and archiving methodology. The long-term goal is to enable continuous observations in the ocean, specifically supporting the goals of the DEOS (Dynamics of Earth and Ocean Systems) observatory program supported through a NSF Major Research Equipment (MRE) program - a permanent presence in the oceans. The impact on scientific work aboard ships, however, is likely to be fundamental. It will be possible to go to sea in the future with limited engineering capability for scientific operations by allowing shore-based quality control of data collected and videoconferencing for problem resolution. Costs for shipboard measurements will be reduced significantly while, at the same time, the quality of data collected will increase and ex-post-facto data archiving will no longer be necessary.