"Smart network" infrastructure for the MBARI ocean observing system

Abstract

The MBARI Ocean Observing System (MOOS) will consist of networked observation platforms and sensors deployed over a wide geographic area, distributed throughout the oceanic water column. The network will utilize a variety of communication links, including optical fiber, microwave, packet radio, satellite, and acoustic, resulting in diversity of throughput, latency, and intermittence throughout the network. The network membership will be highly dynamic and unpredictable, as links go "up" and "down", and devices are added to and removed from the network. The sensors themselves will include a wide range of off-the-shelf instruments as will as novel devices developed at MBARI and elsewhere; sensor interface protocols will thus be very diverse, as there are currently no widely recognized standards. These aspects of the ocean observing system network present challenging software engineering problems. The authors review available "smart network" software technologies that address these problems, and evaluate their feasibility for their system. Addressing the diversity of sensors and protocols, they describe a device called a sensor puck, that could provide a universal interface between any sensor and the network, and that enables spontaneous configuration and operation when the sensor is plugged into the network.