Science requirements as the design drivers for ocean observatories

The ocean sciences are beginning a new phase in which scientists will enter the ocean environment and adaptively observe the Earth-ocean system through remote control of sensors and sensor platforms. This new ocean science paradigm will be implemented using innovative facilities called ocean observatories which provide unprecedented levels of power and communication to access and manipulate real-time sensor networks deployed within many different environments in the ocean basins. The principal design drivers for ocean observatories differ significantly from those for commercial submarine telecommunications systems. First, ocean observatories require data to be input and output at one or more seafloor nodes rather than at a few land terminuses. Second, ocean observatories must distribute a lot of power to the seafloor at variable and fluctuating rates. Third, the seafloor infrastructure for an ocean observatory inherently requires that the wet plant be expandable and dynamically reconfigurable. Finally, because the wet communications and power infrastructure is comparatively complex, ocean observatory infrastructure must be designed for low operating cost rather than zero maintenance. The origin of these differences may be understood by examining science use scenarios as a source for design drivers as a key part of a systems engineering process of iterative refinement to yield conceptual and physical designs. This is illustrated using examples drawn from US and Japanese efforts