The dual roles of SmartBay, a multi-disciplinary subsea observatory delivering sustainable long term coastal marine observations and marine technology development

Abstract

The SmartBay cabled subsea observatory is a shallow water marine infrastructure with two distinct operational roles, namely the provision of high quality, multidisciplinary, marine coastal data for scientific analysis combined with a role in facilitating marine technology testing and innovation projects. This paper highlights the unique aspects in the bespoke design of the infrastructure that facilitates both these roles by allowing multiple suites of instrumentation and equipment to operate simultaneously and how the supporting cyber Infrastructure system ensures real-time access to environmental data for scientists as well as secure real time access for commercial marine technology developers and researchers. The longevity of the infrastructure was a key component of the system design and these unique features are highlighted and discussed in terms of how they allow the infrastructure to carry out multiple projects while maintaining long term data collection capabilities from a suite of core instrumentation. SmartBay’s dual purpose of scientific environmental monitoring and technology development has seen the deployment and completion of a range of projects involving a variety of international researchers both scientific and commercial. We illustrate how the SmartBay observatory engineering and software systems have been adapted and enhanced to facilitate the most efficient usage of the observatory and how operational efficiencies maximise the long-term commercial viability and sustainability of the infrastructure.