The Seaformatics technology demonstration project

Abstract

Memorial University of Newfoundland has completed a project entitled the Ocean Network Seafloor Instrumentation (later renamed Seaformatics Project), which began in 2007 and was funded by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) - Atlantic Innovation Fund (AIF) and a number of other organizations. The concept behind Seaformatics was to develop technologies to enable the long-term deployment of an array of seafloor-mounted ocean sensors. The prototype node - called a Seaformatics Pod - has been successfully tested in Memorial University's Marine Institute flume tank and was field tested in Conception Bay in 2012. The project team proposed to perform a long term trial in Placentia Bay in partnership with Husky Energy. The project will provide much-needed data on the reliability of the Seaformatics Pod platform and prove that the Seaformatics Pod is capable of delivering ocean sensor data for other applications of interest to industry users. For Memorial University, success will result in a Seaformatics Pod prototype that is market-ready, which will in turn better enable the University to commercialize the technology for the global marketplace. This paper describes the 2nd generation pod prototype in detail, gives an overview of the demonstration projects goals and presents the preliminary results of the field program.