The development of low-cost instrumentation plays a key role in marine environmental studies and represents one of the most innovative aspects of current oceanographic research. These kinds of devices can be used for several applications, ranging from vertical profilers to stand-alone systems, and can be installed on different platforms (buoys, Voluntary Observing Ships, underwater vehicles, etc.). The availability of low-cost technologies enables the realization of extended observatory networks for the study of marine physical and biological processes through an integrated approach merging in situ observations, forecasting models and remotely sensed data. We present new low-cost sensors and probes developed to measure marine temperature, conductivity, chlorophyll a and Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter fluorescence, focusing on sensing strategies, general architecture, laboratory trials, in situ tests and comparison with standard instruments. Furthermore, we report the expendable (New T-FLaP), vertical profiler (T-FLaPpro) and stand-alone (Spectra) applications of these technological developments that were tested during several oceanographic surveys in the Mediterranean Sea.

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Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

The Arctic region is known to be severely affected by climate change, with evident alterations in both physical and biological processes. Monitoring the Arctic Ocean ecosystem is key to understanding the impact of natural and human-induced change on the environment. Large data sets are required to monitor the Arctic marine ecosystem and validate high-resolution satellite observations (e.g., Sentinel), which are necessary to feed climatic and biogeochemical forecasting models. However, the Global Observing System needs to complete its geographic coverage, particularly for the harsh, extreme environment of the Arctic Region. In this scenario, autonomous systems are proving to be valuable tools for increasing the resolution of existing data. To this end, a low-cost, miniaturized and flexible probe, ArLoC (Arctic Low-Cost probe), was designed, built and installed on an innovative unmanned marine vehicle, the PROTEUS (Portable RObotic TEchnology for Unmanned Surveys), during a preliminary scientific campaign in the Svalbard Archipelago within the UVASS project. This study outlines the instrumentation used and its design features, its preliminary integration on PROTEUS and its test results.