Multi-computer acquisition and processing for marine environmental monitoring

The Real-Time Acquisition and Processing System (RTAPS) utilizes the increased power and decreased expense of the current generation of microcomputer systems to provide underway monitoring of estuarine and near-shore water quality. The system consists of a stand-alone front-end acquisition computer and one or more IBM PC compatible storage and processing machines. A suite of sensors are used to provide simultaneous measurements of depth, temperature, transmittance, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, pH, ion-specific electrode (ISE), total organic carbon, turbidity, oil and chlorophyll fluorescence and position ( maximum repeatability) at a 2-second update rate while underway. Division of storage and processing tasks among the PCs provides a number of real-time treatment and display capabilities including timeseries plots, report generation, navigation display, channel calibration and ASCII as well as random-access storage to hard or floppy disc. The system is designed to provide much of the power of larger processors yet retain the flexibility, low cost and maintainability of desktop systems.