A Wireless Real-Time Coastal Observation Network

A new integrated coastal observation system is providing preliminary data from the North American Great Lakes. This system can be implemented in other coastal regions. To date, it has been successfully deployed on Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie to make seabed to sea-surface measurements of chemical, biological, and physical parameters, which are transmitted wirelessly through buoys and permanent stations. Called the Real-Time Coastal Observation Network (ReCON), the new system leverages existing networking technology to provide universal access to a wide variety of instrumentation through the use of an underwater Ethernet port server [Austin, 2002]. A team of NOAA engineers and scientists has completed the development and testing of this integrated coastal observation network. Utility of the Network An Ethernet-based coastal observation network design enables the creation of system components, such as sensor drivers, data transfer software, system control functions, database management, web display ,and archival functions, using standard web-design tools. The underwater, universal hub easily allows the attachment of sensors at any time during the deployment period. Portable buoys and permanent stations transferring data into network nodes distributed across broad coastal regions can be integrated at a central location using the Internet. This implementation of a coastal network providing real-time chemical, biological, and physical observations has already benefited ecosystem research ers, resource managers, forecasters, educational institutions, and public users. Further, regional observations downloaded at time intervals required to describe particular ecosystem features and events can be presented to managers and operational forecasters through ad hoc web displays or to students and researchers through searchable database management systems. Using this approach, an observation network can be deployed in any coastal region with Internet availability. Buoys need only be placed within antenna range of the shore station. Deployment range, dependent on the height of the shore antenna, can be as much as 32 kilometers allowing buoy placement anywhere within an approximate 1400 square kilometer area. Additional buoys or fixed stations can be used to extend range through the use of the relay capability inherent in wireless network devices. The observation network supplies enough throughput capacity to simultaneously support continuous measurements from both standard oceanographic and meteorological instrumentation (such as wind and temperature measurements, current velocity profilers, and chemical sensors) and more advanced surface and underwater applications such as streaming imagery. By leveraging existing internet technology for real-time data collection, NOAA’s observation infrastructure can be signifi cantly upgraded to provide forecasters, researchers, coastal resource managers, and the public with the data necessary to make informed decisions in response to ecosystem change [Ocean.US, 2002]. The transition of this research and development effort to an operational coastal implementation has the potential to improve forecasts and forecast verification, increase marine safety, and reduce public health risks while responding to established national goals [Ocean.US, 2006].