Integrated oceanographic survey systems, a flexible design for data acquisition and vessel control

A new generation of multipurpose oceanographic vessels is currently under development. Today's vessels are being designed to meet a variety of needs and are often prepared to collect and analyze a broad range of oceanographic and meteorological data. To meet the needs of this new generation of research vessels, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of Newport, R.I., USA, has developed the Integrated Oceanographic Survey System (IOSS), which provides a modular, scalable data acquisition and processing system. The IOSS is a distributed system consisting of several workstations, each designed to fulfill a specific application. The IOSS can be tailored for a variety of customer requirements and has been installed on nine vessels to date. The workstations can be added or removed and can be scaled to fit the requirements of a specific vessel, whether it is a hydrographic ship, a survey launch, a fisheries vessel or a deep-water oceanographic vessel. Because a consistent user interface is maintained among these workstations, users can move from workstation to workstation, or from vessel to vessel with minimum retraining. This paper presents central design principles and important features of the IOSS. Several examples of IOSS installations are discussed to show how the core system can be useful to navigators, fisheries biologists, hydrographers, oceanographers and other scientists.