Remote data access through Ethernet. Virtual instrument for oceanographic instrumentation supervision and analysis

During the last years a new class of multipurpose research vessels has been built These ships are equipped with a complete set of oceanographic, analysis and geophysical instrumentation, multibeam echosounders, parametric profilers, ADCPs, cold laboratories, and chemical analysis instrumentation (discrete and continuous). Most of these ships are working on remote areas from their bases as far as Antarctica or the Indian Ocean and there has been some initiatives to use the long transit tracks to these areas to collect useful data. Of course this data collection should be supervised not only for the quality of the data (ODAS, J. Sorribas et al. (1998)) but also the status of the equipment and the conditions of the rooms and labs where they are installed (i.e. temperature in cold chambers, pressure, etc.). In this paper we present a prototype of a system that enables the technician to supervise the equipment installed on board from a control room.