Panel session on “Ocean Observing Platforms and Technologies for Ocean Decade: Prospects and Perspectives” at OCEANS 2024 Singapore

Filippo Campagnaro (OES Young Professional 2023-2024) and Hari Vishnu (Acoustic Research Laboratory, National University of Singapore) 

On Wednesday, 17 April, 2023, during the OCEANS Conference in Singapore, a panel session related to Ocean Decade observatories took place, titled “Ocean Observing Platforms and Technologies for Ocean Decade: Prospects and Perspectives.” As many of our readers already know, the vision of the Ocean Decade is “the science we need for the ocean we want” and it seeks to stimulate ocean science and knowledge generation to reverse the decline of the state of the ocean system. The 3Ms: Measure, Monitor and Model the ocean data are fundamental to understand the science of our oceans and ocean management. However, the vastness, harsh environment, and accessibility issues to remote areas makes it challenging for observing the oceans widely.  Alternatively, the availability of limited platforms and technologies restricts our ability to collect large enough data through sustained and long-term monitoring. Low-cost autonomous platforms and persistent measurement technologies are now shaping the future of the ocean observing systems.

This panel addressed and showcased some of the technologies and platforms that have either been tested and deployed or being developed to increase sustained ocean observing capacity globally. More than 30 people attended the panel that was organised and moderated by Venugopalan Pallayil. Venugopalan, after a quick but inspiring introductory speech, introduced the speakers of the panel. Their names and affiliations are listed below:

1. Justin Manley, President of the Marine Technology Society,
2. Yi Chao, Founder & CEO of Seatrec,
3. Julie Angus, CEO & Co-Founder of Open Ocean robotics,
4. Carlos Barrera Rodriguez, VIMAS Head, Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands – PLOCAN,
5. Allan Adams, Physicist and PI of the Future Ocean Lab, MIT,
6. Kendra McDonald, Chief Executive Officer Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, and
7. Jani Tanzil, Director of the St. Johns Island National Marine laboratory.

The panelists addressed how these emerging ocean observing approaches can contribute on the surface, in water and on the seabed measurements and how it can serve different industry sectors.

Justin mentioned that, when speaking of the “Blue Economy” and “Blue Energy,” everyone thinks about turbines. But the application is not that straightforward as most people think, as you need 2000-3000 windmill turbines to produce enough energy for a city, hence the footprint of such deployment may be very high and so the deployment cost for making energy.

Changing topic, he highlighted another aspect – that smart buoys and mooring systems are collecting precious data, but such deployments are not scalable as they cost millions of US Dollars (USD) and are hard to be deployed. Simpler systems, like Argos, cost a few tens of thousands of USD and are well known for their scalability. Other smaller buoys exist now in the market (with a price of 5k USD) and their deployment may scale even better, indicating these types of systems as promising solutions to help studying the oceans.

Julie Angus addressed another promising technology that can push the study of ocean waters forward, i.e., the use of relatively low-cost Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASVs), with a price of about 100 thousand USD each, equipped with sensors for collecting maritime data. The modular structure of such vessels allows customization sensor payloads and configure the ASVs for any user needs. The data, including the vessel’s mission, can be retrieved in real-time. These solar powered ASVs are a drive towards sustainable operation.

Yi Chao presented how research activities performed by academia can have a significant innovation impact and result in the creation of startups and commercial products. He presented Seatrec’s InfiniTE^â float  as a case study. The float measures several water properties including conductivity, temperature and depth along the water column for long periods. The energy harvesting feature of this float provides sustainable operation in the Subsea. He opined that it could be an alternative to Argo floats, but with less impact on the ocean floor as the new system, unlike Argo floats, does not leave anything on the seabed. He also mentioned that these floats can be equipped with additional sensors such as an echosounder for bathymetry mapping and hydrophones for passive acoustic monitoring.

Kendra then presented the Canada’s National Ocean Cluster, a big action and accelerator to fund made-in-Canada solutions for Ocean Energy, sustainable seafood, future transport and ocean climate solutions. She highlighted that national and international funding actions are essential to push the study on the ocean a step forward, by supporting the development of new technology that covers several aspects of ocean science, hence using a holistic approach. This includes, among the others, genomics, fish tracking, satellite data, autonomous vessels, data analysis with AI for various accurate predictions and data retrieval through underwater acoustic communications.

Speaking on the subject of data accessibility, Carlos presented how European level data retrieved by floats, ferries, mooring, gliders, and research vessels is well-organized in several frameworks to provide high quality measurements in standardized databases. This is missing for Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs), although many USVs already transit from academia to market. They are very capable energy wise due to solar panels and ability to retrieve energy from waves. Many sensors can be installed, and technology is mature, but there is a lack at the network level (technology, mission and operation, etc.). Therefore, at the European level, there is the ongoing European Ocean Observing System (EOOS) project where this problem is in the process of being addressed and more actions are in process with U.S. and Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS).

Finally, Jani presented the Singapore St. Johns Island National Marine laboratory and its facilities, including a research vessel and various resources and infrastructure for experimentation. As part of her ongoing Marine environmental sensing network (MESN) projects, an R&D buoy was developed in a modular way, where one can add and remove sensor modules depending on the observation needs of researchers. She mentioned that for a busy port like Singapore autonomous sensing platforms, such as USVs and ASVs, may not be the best due to limited space and very shallow waters. A research community-based database is made available online to everyone, to help research activities and make the students aware of the environment. There are big challenges on fronts such as “unwanted biodiversity,” or biofouling, that is still an unresolved issue. Jani said she is looking for help on this front if anyone has the solution.

After these inspiring speeches, a Q&A session started, where audiences could interact with the panelists.

In reaction to a question related to whether the world is reacting well enough to address the climate change problem, Justin and Julie agreed that the Blue Economy is going to have to scale a lot in response to this, and we need this for the decarbonization of shipping activities. According to Kendra, Julie and Jani, it is essential to make the general public (and not just scientists or technologists) aware of the impact of climate change, and to show them the easy-to-understand and unequivocable data. The lack of awareness outside of our community of scientists, engineers, educators and technologists, slows down the process, as the whole population, including those outside this community, are the ones driving actions, and convincing politicians with their vote. Following the same theme, Carlos added in another aspect that the technology sooner or later will arrive, but the main problem is regulation to enable it to be applied.

The second question pointed out that oceanography research and monitoring faces problems with vandalisms that cause mooring systems to go missing or out of service sooner than expected. Moreover, all activities related to data retrieval for ocean studies are very expensive and many countries cannot afford them. Carlos answered that in case of vandalism, there is not a lot that can be done, and that the perfect ocean monitoring system does not exist, but it comes from the creation of a system-of-systems where equipment already in place is integrated with new devices, creating a holistic platform. Julie agreed that vandalism is always a risk, but technology can help as, in the case of a USV, you can send another USV if the first gets vandalized without the need of going in with a ship. Moreover, using lower cost assets have less impact if vandalized, and it is more important that the data is retrieved even if the unit is lost, which can now be done thanks to wireless connectivity. Yi stated that it is difficult to make a mooring system vandalism-proof, and redundancy is an option. The defense community is coming out with methodology to reduce the footprint and we will see in the near future if this is applicable. Kendra also agreed that redundancy to have data in real-time through wireless communications is essential so that the data is not lost if the assets get vandalized. It is also important to provide a way to locate the sensor and get it back if it is lost. Justin pointed out that for vandalism, making the sensors “invisible” can help – for example, have them below the water surface like Argo floats.

A comment from the audience highlighted that adding sensors to monitor the ocean is also increasing the ocean pollution. While Justin on the one hand agrees that if sensors are lost they may become a source of pollution, the small pollution they are creating is a small price to pay compared to the importance of the data they are acquiring to help decarbonize the oceans. In fact, this pollution is definitely negligible compared to other human actions.

The next question was related to the use of the data acquired from these observatories, and what steps are needed to facilitate actions starting from data products.

In response, Justin opined that ocean data itself is becoming a business, and without this happening it will be hard to have a strong action. Hence, he advocates for ocean data to be commercialized. Kendra highlighted that there are many actions under the umbrella of the Ocean Decade, and a lot is going on with Artificial Intelligence to make predictions from data. She went on to mention that it is time now to investigate how this information is valuable for aquaculture, defense or other activities. Yi agreed that industry started making sensors and databases without knowing what the customers were doing with the data, and fortunately the new trend is understanding the final use of this data, hence making customization to the final user.

Julie spoke on the fact that lots of intelligence onboard the sensors can allow to classify vessels, do passive acoustics and many other operations. Then, on shore data fusion can be performed with satellite data to better understand what it is happening in a certain area. Jani thought that the main problem in terms of sustainability of the platform, is to have the money for using and maintain such systems in the long term, and to figure out how the data can be useful for policy makers. Carlos highlighted that it is important to understand the role of the people and the institutions in the chain of data management and exportation, as the data itself is only the starting point and the roles on the added value chain must be clarified.

To conclude the panel, the final question addressed to the panelists was on increasing people awareness on ocean topics, and how to prevent possible problems with misinformation and people misunderstanding on these topics. Carlos highlighted the importance of a multidisciplinary approach with new technology and the importance to cooperate with other fields involved in the same project to have a very efficient approach. Jani states that it is essential that the scientific community never sows climate change skepticism. The problem is how do we convey this information to general people, student sharing our knowledge to have a strong impact? This is an important point that needs to be discussed. Julie also agreed that communication to people is very important, and so is working with people and making them feel that new technologies, such as robots, are not about stealing their jobs.

Yi said that, in fact, when mapping the ocean, people ask why the public money is spent to perform this task when there are many other problems directly related to people life. Communication with people is important to make them understand the importance of this activity. Kendra stated that it is a big challenge having the world understanding research as the way the academia communicate is different than how the public communicate. So, we need to put in an effort to simplify our communication and make it more accessible to general public. Finally, Justin mentioned that the problem is that communities make decisions based on emotions and not on data provided by scientists, and for this reason we need to make this information more accessible to avoid this to happen.

Overall, the panel provided many diverse and excellent insights into this important topic of ocean observation in a sustainable and low-cost manner, which is a crucial aspect of the ongoing UN Ocean Decade.