Instrumentation Needs and Readiness Levels for Ocean Observing: Workshop 1 - Sensors

March 12-13, 2009, Portland, OR, Marriott Downtown Waterfront

Updated information:

• Agenda
• Instrument Information Questionnaire: The completed questionnaire will not be shared with other vendors.  Address any questions to Lorraine Brasseur (lbrasseur@oceanleadership.org).
• Final Network Design (Redacted)
• OOI Sensors
• OOI Technology Readiness Levels
• Final Participant List

Day 1 Presentations

• OOI Overview
• Cyberinfrastructure Overview
• OOI/Vendor Business Models
• OOI Requirements
  • Regional Scale Nodes
  • Coastal/Global Scale Nodes
  • Cyberinfrastructure
• OOI Readiness Levels
• Logistics and Operations
• Instrument and CI Interfaces

Day 2 Presentations

• Smart Ocean Sensor Consortium

Background and Foci:

The processes that actively shape the earth and ultimately impact society must be investigated over the spatial and temporal scales at which they occur. To characterize the processes occurring in the ocean, new types of infrastructure are needed that are capable of providing long-term, high-resolution observations of critical environmental parameters.  In order to provide the U.S. ocean sciences research and management communities with access to the basic infrastructure required to make sustained, long-term and adaptive measurements in the oceans, the NSF's Ocean Sciences Division has developed the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).  The OOI is an outgrowth of many years of community-wide scientific planning efforts, both nationally and internationally.  As these efforts mature, the research-focused observatory network enabled by the OOI will be an important collaborator with the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), and NSF sponsored programs such as EarthScope and the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program.

The success of these efforts is based in large part on identifying effective and reliable in situ instrumentation as observing networks are being designed, deployed and expanded.  Therefore, the goal of this workshop is to engage members of the technology development and manufacturing communities with scientific, engineering, and agency ocean observing communities in a discussion of OOI requirements and supplier capabilities. The potential scope of instrumentation needs and readiness for ocean observing is very broad, beyond what could be covered in a single workshop. This workshop will focus on the requirements for OOI Core Sensors (i.e., sensors that are part of the OOI initial build), as described in the OOI Final Network Design document, and the readiness of existing sensors to meet those requirements.

Participation is open to manufacturers, engineers, and scientists interested in supplying OOI Core Sensors.

The OOI Sensor Workshop has the following goals:

• To describe OOI Core Sensor types, requirements, and deployment platforms.  
    (see the OOI Core Measurements List below)
• To assess the state of sensors relative to OOI needs with respect to:
  • Sensor readiness relative to OOI Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) and Maintenance Classes,
  • Sensor packaging for OOI fixed and mobile platforms,
  • Sensor interfacing relative to cyberinfrastructure requirements, and
  • Future plans for sensor development.
• To discuss OOI/Vendor business models.

Steering Committee

Steering Committee Chairs
Mario Tamburri (Alliance for Coastal Technologies) tamburri@cbl.umces.edu
Lorraine Brasseur (Consortium for Ocean Leadership) lbrasseur@oceanleadership.org

Steering Committee
Charly Alexander (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/IOOS)
Doug Au (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
Brian Bornhold (NEPTUNE Canada)
Kendra Daly (University of South Florida)
Deb Kelley (University of Washington)
Al Plueddemann (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)