Collaborative Automation and IoT Technologies for Coastal Ocean Observing Systems

Abstract

Coastal observing systems are typically nationally funded and built around national priorities. As a result, there are presently significant differences between countries in terms of sustainability, observing capacity and technologies, as well as methods and research priorities. Ocean observing systems in coastal areas must now move toward an integrated, multidisciplinary and multiscale system of systems, where heterogeneity should be exploited to deliver fit-for-purpose products that answer the diversity and complexity of the requirements from stakeholders and end-users. Essential elements of such distributed observation systems are the use of machine-to-machine communication, data fusion and processing applying recent technological developments for the Internet of Things (IoT) toward a common cyberinfrastructure. This perspective paper illustrates some of the challenges for sustained coastal observations and provides details on how to address present gaps. We discuss the role of collaborative robotics between unmanned platforms in coastal areas and the methods to benefit from IoT technologies. Given present trends in cost-effective solutions in ocean sensors and electronics, and methods for marine automation and communication, we consider that a distributed observation system can effectively provide timely information in coastal regions around the world, including those areas that are today poorly observed (e.g., developing countries). Adaptation in space and time of the sensing nodes, and the flexibility in handling different sensing platforms can provide to the system the ability to quickly respond to the rapid changes in oceanic and climatic processes, as well as to promptly respond to evolving stakeholder and end-user requirements.

Smarthub for supervising system for resource exploration and pollution control in deep-water and coastal areas based on ICT technologies

“…Methodological aspects, cybersecurity problems and Blockchain technology implementation are not sufficiently discussed. But essential elements toward the implementation of a distributed and autonomous architecture for ocean monitoring and observation are described to achieve the ability to measure physical, chemical and biological variables across a range of spatial and temporal scales in coastal areas, Mariani et al. (2021).…”

Improvement in the Post-Processing of Wave Buoy Data Driven by the Needs of a National Coast and Sea Monitoring Agency

“…Moreover, the demand for an easily readable and portable data output illuminates the need for a standardized data format. The fast spread of IoT technologies will eventually add a new dimension for monitoring data requirements, to "move toward an integrated, multidisciplinary and multiscale system of systems, where heterogeneity should be exploited to deliver fit-forpurpose products that answer the diversity and complexity of the requirements from stakeholders and end-users" [10]. Frequency amplitude spectrum, integrated over one example run.…”

“…where 𝑎 (𝑓) and 𝑏 (𝑓) are defined in ( 9) and (10), respectively. In the example above, the two directions were correctly identified.…”

Integrating Multidisciplinary Observations in Vent Environments (IMOVE): Decadal Progress in Deep-Sea Observatories at Hydrothermal Vents

“…This technology aims to explore and quantify the role of the ocean and seafloor processes in climate change, in provisioning of rare minerals and unexplored biological resources, and availability of biomass. The future directions on ocean sensors development are within the design of i) novel sensing technology, such as underwater mass spectrometer, eDNA collectors and in situ sequencing, ii) energy efficient and/or resilient solutions to minimise battery consumption and/or harvest ocean energy, iii) use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to reduce energy/data storage by "pre-filtering" data or allow adaptive sampling, and iv) new networking architectures that integrate the sensor networks at the surface, e.g., as described in Aguzzi et al (2019) and Mariani et al (2021) with the underwater sensor networks.…”

“…These platforms can communicate at the surface through IoT protocols, as described in Mariani et al (2021) or underwater through underwater acoustic, optical, and/or magnetic inductive modems. Acoustic waves propagate over long ranges (orders of km) but can transfer limited data rate (some kpbs) optical modem can reach a few tens of meters with data rates of up to 500 kbps and finally magnetic inductive modems can support contactless data transfer (very short range few cm).…”