The SEAformatics project: Empowering the seafloor

The Ocean Network Seafloor Instrumentation (ONSFI) Project, which commenced in 2007, is a five year multidisciplinary research and development (R&D) project to design, fabricate and validate a proof-of-concept seafloor array of wireless marine sensors for use in monitoring seabed processes, including applications such as geological imaging and earthquake detection. Individual compact, low-cost sensors, called ´SEAformatics´ pods, will be self-powered through ocean bottom currents and will be able to communicate with each other and to the Internet through surface master units to facilitate observation of the ocean floor from shore. The ONSFI project has four R&D streams: marine sensors; power generation; communication networking; and final integration of the systems into a working prototype. This project links sensor science, wireless communications technologies, smart materials, ocean current power harvesting technologies and web-based information technologies. The final phase of the project is to integrate the sensor, power and networking sub-projects with the unit´s structural and deployment elements to result in an autonomous SEAformatics pod which is ready to be deployed and tested in a proof-of-concept sample array, in situ in a marine environment. Targeted completion date is the fall of 2011.