Andrew R. Maffei

NEPTUNE: real-time, long-term ocean and Earth studies at the scale of a tectonic plate

The NEPTUNE project will establish a linked array of undersea observatories on the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. The NEPTUNE infrastructure, consisting of fiber-optic/power cable and junction boxes, will provide significant amounts of power and an Internet communications link to sensors and sensor networks on, above, and below the seafloor. This observatory will provide a new kind of research platform for real-time, long-term, plate-scale studies in the ocean and Earth sciences.

CABLED OCEAN OBSERVATORY SYSTEMS

The most capable ocean observatories are designed around a submarine fiber optic/power cable connecting one or more seafloor science nodes to the terrestrial power grid and communications backhaul. This paper defines the top level requirements that drive cabled observatory design and the system engineering environment within which a scientifically-capable infrastructure can be implemented. Commercial high reliability submarine telecommunication technologies which will be crucial in the design of long term cabled observatories are then reviewed. The top level architecture of a generic cabled observatory, describing the main subsystems comprising the whole and defining technological approaches to their engineering, is then described, along with some example design choices and tradeoff studies.

Self-Positioning Smart Buoys, The "Un-Buoy" Solution: Logistic Considerations using Autonomous Surface Craft Technology and Improved Communications Infrastructure

Moored buoys have long served national interests, but incur high development, construction, installation, and maintenance costs. Buoys which drift off-location can pose hazards to mariners, and in coastal waters may cause environmental damage. Moreover, retrieval, repair and replacement of drifting buoys may be delayed when data would be most useful. Such gaps in coastal buoy data can pose a threat to national security by reducing maritime domain awareness. The concept of self-positioning buoys has been advanced to reduce installation cost by eliminating mooring hardware. We here describe technology for operation of reduced cost self-positioning buoys which can be used in coastal or oceanic waters. The ASC SCOUT model is based on a self-propelled, GPS-positioned, autonomous surface craft that can be pre-programmed, autonomous, or directed in real time. Each vessel can communicate wirelessly with deployment vessels and other similar buoys directly or via satellite. Engineering options for short or longer term power requirements are considered, in addition to future options for improved energy delivery systems. Methods of reducing buoy drift and position-maintaining energy requirements for self-locating buoys are also discussed, based on the potential of incorporating traditional maritime solutions to these problems. We here include discussion of the advanced Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) communications draft protocol which offers improved wireless communication capabilities underwater, to adjacent vessels, and to satellites. DTN is particularly adapted for noisy or loss-prone environments, thus it improves reliability. In addition to existing buoy communication via commercial satellites, a growing network of small satellites known as PICOSATs can be readily adapted to provide low-cost communications nodes for buoys. Coordination with planned vessel Automated Identification Systems (AIS) and International Maritime Organization standards for buoy and vessel notification systems are reviewed and the legal framework for deployment of autonomous surface vessels is considered

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO OCEAN OBSERVATORY DATA ACQUISITION/MANAGEMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE CONTROL USING WEB SERVICES

Proliferation of ocean observatories in the absence of agreed upon standards for instrument and user interfaces and observatory control functions will constrain interoperability/cross-linking of disparate datasets. In turn, this will limit scientific impact of ocean observatories and increase operating costs. Devising hardware-based standards will be difficult given the different internal architecture of existing and future ocean observatories. This paper proposes that instrument, data, and observatory control processes be wrapped with standard web services to yield a global software standard for the observatory functions. In addition to facilitating interoperability, state-full web services with workflow bindings for observatory instrument and data processes will enable dynamic user control of observatory configuration and the creation of multiple virtual instrument networks within 1 or more ocean observatories. These concepts are defined and illustrated through several use scenarios.

A modular Gigabit Ethernet backbone for NEPTUNE and other ocean observatories

Ethernet is the most popular technology used for local area networks (LANs). Recently, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) technology has successfully competed with SONET and other legacy alternatives such as ATM and frame relay for metropolitan area network (WAN) implementations. This paper describes a modular ocean observatory node design resulting from design activities of the NEPTUNE observatory data communications team. Internal node modules based on Gigabit Ethernet, point-to-point wave division multiplexing (WDM) and TCP/IP (Internet) protocol technologies are employed to define communications building blocks used in the design of the NEPTUNE regional scale ocean observatory communications system and are also applicable to coastal, buoyed and autonomous observatory nodes.

4DGeoBrowser : a web-based data browser and server for accessing and analyzing multi-disciplinary data

Abstract : This report describes the 4DGeoBrowser software system. The GeoBrowser is a web-based application developed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution by Steven Lemer and Andrew Maffei. It has been designed with the goal of creating, accessing, and analyzing repositories of oceanographic datasets that have been generated by investigators in differing scientific disciplines. Once the information is loaded onto a Geobrowser server the investigator-user is able to login to the website and use a set of data access and analysis tools to search, plot, and display this information. GeoBrowser servers are also capable of processing commands that are submitted remotely via HTTP URLs or email. Scientists are able to use this capability to make calls to the GeoBrowser server and generate click-able maps, tables of URLs, and customized HTML pages. These can then be used to enhance websites associated with scientific projects. Examples of supporting scientific website functionality that includes time series plotting, data delivery by email, geo-spatial plotting of interdisciplinary data, map-based search capabilities and other functionality are presented in this report. The report includes examples of GeoBrowser application websites, a user manual, and a reference guide. In addition, the concept of Electronic Index Cards (EICs) is presented.

Toward cyberinfrastructure to facilitate collaboration and reproducibility for marine integrated ecosystem assessments

There is a growing need for cyberinfrastructure to support science-based decision making in management of natural resources. In particular, our motivation was to aid the development of cyberinfrastructure for Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (IEAs) for marine ecosystems. The IEA process involves analysis of natural and socio-economic information based on diverse and disparate sources of data, requiring collaboration among scientists of many disciplines and communication with other stakeholders. Here we describe our bottom-up approach to developing cyberinfrastructure through a collaborative process engaging a small group of domain and computer scientists and software engineers. We report on a use case evaluated for an Ecosystem Status Report, a multi-disciplinary report inclusive of Earth, life, and social sciences, for the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem. Ultimately, we focused on sharing workflows as a component of the cyberinfrastructure to facilitate collaboration and reproducibility. We developed and deployed a software environment to generate a portion of the Report, retaining traceability of derived datasets including indicators of climate forcing, physical pressures, and ecosystem states. Our solution for sharing workflows and delivering reproducible documents includes IPython (now Jupyter) Notebooks. We describe technical and social challenges that we encountered in the use case and the importance of training to aid the adoption of best practices and new technologies by domain scientists. We consider the larger challenges for developing end-to-end cyberinfrastructure that engages other participants and stakeholders in the IEA process.

A management concept for ocean observatories based on Web services

The proliferation of ocean observatories without internationally agreed-upon standards for instrument/user interfaces and observatory control functions is inhibiting interoperability and utilization of disparate datasets. This is in turn limiting the scientific impact of ocean observatories and increasing their operating costs. Hardware-based standards are not feasible given the different internal architectures of existing and planned ocean observatories. This paper proposes that instrument, data, and observatory control processes be wrapped with Web services which will provide a global software standard for these observatory functions. In addition to facilitating interoperability, state-full Web services with workflow bindings for observatory instrument and data services will enable dynamic user control of the observatory configuration and the creation of multiple virtual instrument networks within one or more ocean observatories. These concepts are defined and illustrated through a number of use scenarios

Basic requirements and options for communication systems in scientific underwater cable networks

New innovative scientific underwater cable networks have been proposed and initiated in many locations around the world. These networks have become feasible due to recent evolution of underwater telecommunication cable technology. However, their communication systems are quite different from standard telecommunication cable systems. Differences between the characteristics of existing submarine telecommunication systems and the basic technical requirements of scientific underwater cable networks will first be described. Options for the use of existing technologies include optical gigabit Ethernet (GbE) over a separate DWDM optical transport, integrated CWDM GbE transceivers and DWDM with Raman modulators. These will be presented along with their advantages and disadvantages. The present status of NEPTUNE communication system and considerations on its reliability will also be presented.