From sensor to situational awareness

This paper describes the integrated FlexMoT data management and visualization software system for marine sensor data. Unlike most existing solutions this software platform is designed to be neither data-centric nor visualization-centric, but seamlessly integrating both, management and visualization of measurement data. Within the project FlexMoT (Flexible Monitoring Tool) a modular, easy-to-use and fast deployable environmental monitoring solution with a high temporal and depth resolution for underwater environments has been developed. This monitoring system was designed for the use in the underwater surrounding of offshore installations like oil rigs or gas production platforms and other critical and sensitive marine environments. It enables the exact measurement of concentration of dissolved gases such as methane in water and other environmental parameters that may be indicators of leakages. The FlexMoT software stack offers situational awareness and advanced decision support in environmental monitoring by organizing, preparing and presenting the gathered sensor data in a way that (1) operator personnel of offshore installations and marine researchers can draw the right conclusions and (2) appropriate actions can be initiated swiftly and well-informed. Similar to the modular hardware approach, the software uses a plugin approach to foster the simple reconfiguration to different use-cases. The designed visualization system utilizes human perception to transform lots of data quickly and intuitively into helpful information, to draw attention to critical events or striking data and support explorative data analysis with interactive displays. The implemented visualization solution combines recent web-technologies and linked interactive 2D and 3D data presentations utilizing a direct-touch interaction metaphor. In this paper, we present the complete software stack of FlexMoT for data management, operational near real-time monitoring, visual data analytics of marine environmental data and visual forecast of gas leakage situations. It is proposed as a universal approach to improve visualization-based work with heterogeneous sensor data in environmental monitoring and marine research.